


letters to my dearest beloved

by UniversalSatan



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Idiots in Love, Letters, Love Letters, M/M, Mutual Pining, Poetry, Slow Burn, i will add more characters and tags as i go on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2019-11-29 04:26:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18218189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniversalSatan/pseuds/UniversalSatan
Summary: My dearest beloved,It is with great relief that I finally write to you. I think it doubtful for my words to ever reach your ears, but spare me this chance to lend you a piece of my thoughts — and only a piece, for I must write with caution lest I be discovered.Neil, amidst his own internal emotional conflict, accidentally stumbles upon letters Todd had been writing in secret to an unknown recipient. Neil (an idiot) continues to intrude on Todd's privacy by reading each new letter in secret, continuously agitating over their purpose.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HEY GUYS oh man cant believe this is my first work for dps but HERE WE GO  
> this fic was meant to be like a oneshot, then it started dragging out, and then i got impatient so now its a multichapter fic so i hope you guys like content (i just started spring break tho so hopefully the last one or two chapters will be up really soon)(im also balancing 2 other huge wips as well as all the IB essays and exams i gotta get done before i graduate lol so please bear with me)
> 
> sorry the beginning sounds so pretentious and the letters oh my GOD but then again this is dps so im giving myself some slack :)) (its not betad either so aha whoops) also as i was writing i just realized how DUMB neil is but thats cool that's what the slow burn tag is for haha

 

Perhaps the moment Neil first realized that something was off was the instant the final word fell from Todd’s lips, his eyes fluttering open anew.

Or rather, it very well might have been the start of it all.

See, as much as Neil realized there was an emotion _present_ , he was never able to place his finger on its exact title. As Keating twirled Todd around like a wooden top at the front of the classroom, Neil felt much like he was up there himself, dizzy with the impact of poesy that fell in their wake. When Mr. Keating finally fell to a crouch and let the spotlight shine on the boy presently unaware of his surroundings, a tidal wave had washed over the entire class, drowning them all in what they knew to be a spectacular moment in time that just happened to be specially unraveled in their presence.

Silence hung over their heads, burdening the intense weight of an awakening burrowing itself into Neil — it was in that period of breath (or lack thereof) that Neil began to question if he was truly about to become this sweaty-toothed madman Todd had prophesied, being so filled with confusion that his sense of reality was like looking through a dirty fish bowl. _What truth was he intended to sprout when he was not yet aware of it himself?_

Yet none of that nonsense was quite enough to perturb the student. What Neil was truly enthralled with was by the fact that Keating had single-handedly peeled back the layers that shrouded his roommate; Todd was a rich chocolate that had been broken open, revealing a deep red but luxuriously sweet cherry hidden inside — and Neil couldn’t get enough of this new, fantastic flavor.

So with a new treasure, a new desire, a new goal in mind, Neil stared at his roommate in awe-filled stupor, faintly wondering if the rest of his peers also felt like they were drowning from the inside.

Of course, none of these flurries of unfamiliar emotion were comprehensible to the poor boy whatsoever. His breath had been stolen and his heart made to work double time, yet it was only in his power to stare dumbfounded, prodding skeptically into the newfound beauty emitting from Todd’s triumphant visage. The passion Todd had expressed seeped into Neil’s very being, reflected in an unspoken awe but not yet understood.

_Truth_ , Neil hastily addressed as he applauded his fellow classmate, _would have to wait for another day._

But perhaps this wasn’t an initial realization — perhaps it was always in the background, silently plaguing his mind like a lone fly in an empty room.

The realization of this foreign emotion probably had roots all the way back even to when Neil introduced himself to his new roommate. Days that turned into weeks were nothing but a blur now, so the only memories Neil could possibly speculate over were those around the precious little moments they spent together that still stood vivid in his mind.

What about when they had first discussed an initial meeting to reconvene the _Dead Poets’ Society_? Dedicated to draw the other in, Neil had slid onto the bench with much gusto where Todd had been quietly studying, away from the usual ruckus Neil thrived within. As timid and stubborn as he was, Neil only became more intrigued in the other, compelled to include his obedient roommate in their scheme. Shy eyes and a softer voice drew something out of Neil from the very beginning.

And how about when Neil first got news of the open auditions for _A Midsummer’s Night Dream?_ He had been so bristled with excitement that he craved some sort of release, immediately returning to his room knowing that Todd (quietly studying and unsuspecting) would lend an ear as Neil expressed his thrill. Despite his struggle for something to hold onto, Todd had unexpectedly dragged him back to his reality so that Neil felt like he hit a roadblock, unable to maintain the freedom to seek out any happiness. Nevertheless, some petty and childish part of him latched onto his roommate’s stubbornness and turned it on him, all in one impulsive moment in the refusal to keep his nose out of Todd’s business.

That moment in itself was probably another step to his realization. It happened all so suddenly within which his perspective altered drastically, seeing Todd’s very soul emerge onto his face as he noticed how much his roommate struggled with taking part in anything Neil had been saying, or even to defend himself. Neil almost found it amusing that such an awkward boy had forced him back down to his frustration, the laughable idea present the second he grinned and repeated his refusal. _Had he, with his tenacity and eagerness, really been so easily swayed by the boy in his room that can barely utter a sentence with any absolute confidence?_ There had to be something underneath that feeling, and maybe it was just because he had been pissed off that Todd had mentioned Neil’s father, but whatever spurred the gleeful impulsiveness originated from somewhere very different than any malevolent memories. Neil found it only too easy to forgive when he saw the other beaming, wrapped up in the cacophony of Charlie’ and Knox’s hollers and Cameron’s beratings.

So perhaps bathing in Todd’s words of truth and a sweaty-toothed madman, letting their significance seep into his skin, was not such a revelation — but Neil couldn’t deny that whatever he felt as he gazed and gaped at his roommate, glowing as he caught his breath, was anything but unknown and unstable.

 

* * *

 

The first letter Neil found was discovered only a few days later.

Todd had disappeared to consult their trigonometry professor during his office hours just prior, and Neil was left alone that evening with the room to himself. Not many of the boys were bustling around in the hall, so Neil had been left with at least some peace and quiet to rehearse his lines as Puck. Unfortunately, the gradual realization of something unfamiliar had left him for the worst, and he couldn’t concentrate for the life of him.

To be frustrated was probably an understatement; no matter how many times Neil repeated his lines, pacing to and from and on and around his bed, the words simply didn’t stick, sometimes even disappearing from his brain whilst reading the line dozens of times. He resisted the urge to ball up the script and fling it to the ground, instead collapsing on his mattress in defeat.

Acting was supposed to be his _passion…_ why did he struggle so with his dream? _At least if Todd was here,_ Neil thought absently, _he would listen diligently and offer some constructive criticism (with a lot of persuasion)._

Neil buried his face in his script. _He had to stop thinking about Todd goddamn Anderson_. What... did he want to become closer friends? Weren’t they already friends enough? Did he just want to drag the poor boy out of his shell once and for all, proving to the rest of the world that the next Walt Whitman lived in the very same room as he did?

Groaning, Neil slid off his bed so that he was hanging upside-down over the edge, letting the blood rush to his head as he let his arms dangle and rest by his ears, his reading glasses slipping off his face and the script fluttering on the floorboards. He wondered if he would be able to perform, say, if he had been given some of Todd’s writing.

Feeling the pulse of his heart shake his body, Neil concentrated on regulating his breath, slowly opening his eyes to investigate his new perspective. Maybe turning everything upside-down would have the answers to all of his questions.

Through the legs of Todd’s bed frame, Neil spotted a piece of paper that had been forgotten at the foot of Todd’s writing desk, agape as any freshly-folded piece of paper would. He peered at it for a little while, entertaining himself by simply wondering what it could possibly contain. _A shopping list? Some math calculations? A girl’s phone number?_

Curiosity flooded his brain, making his fingers twitch and his head tilt to the side (under the pressure of his slowly slipping torso). No matter what it was, could it really be enough to quell the unease in Neil’s spirit and allow him to practice in total peace?

Ignoring any boundaries that had been unspokenly set during their time as roommates, Neil crumpled to the ground and rolled off his shoulder, giving in to his innate interest. The _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ script lay forgotten in the middle of the floor as he crawled across to Todd’s side of the room. Reaching for the overlooked paper, Neil pulled himself to his feet to properly read whatever this would turn out to be.

Very carefully, Neil unfolded the paper, holding it in his hands as if it was a sheet of glass. Adjusting his reading glasses back up on his nose, he inspected the neat scrawl.

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

Neil pushed the paper away from him suddenly, reeling in the words that he had just read. He was brutally aware of his own heartbeat, thudding in his own ears and lecturing him on being so intrusive. For a moment, Neil didn’t even want to believe that this was of Todd’s doing, but the familiar handwriting was unmistakable.

Laying the letter open on Todd’s bed, Neil paced around their room for a minute. _Was anyone going to interrupt him?_ No, there hadn’t been any footsteps out in the hall for quite a while… and why was he so concerned about it in the first place? As jittery and hesitant as he was, his curiosity had burned out of control, and he simply would die if he didn’t get to finish reading it.

With new conviction and shaky steps, Neil carefully approached the letter once again, seeing the letters loom into view the closer he came. Taking a deep breath, he picked up the letter and stood perfectly still, reading every word luxuriously as to properly digest its meaning.

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_  


_It is with great relief that I finally write to you. I think it doubtful for my words to ever reach your ears, but spare me this chance to lend you a piece of my thoughts — and only a piece, for I must write with caution lest I be discovered._

_I cannot recall when it all began, but I find myself addicted to your presence, seeking your voice in my darkest moments to pull me out of the water again. You rob me of life —my fountain of youth— while you are away, so that when I see you again my mouth is already dry, my knees already quaking, and my heart already aflutter. O, how I long to allow you an endless intermission, stopping time itself just to listen to your laugh! Every sleepy murmur and tired gaze you cast is another spell unbeknownst to the magus, and at once I am hypnotized, unable to shake myself from the mind control until dawn knocks on the window._

_Now I have worked myself up into quite a frenzy, for I have suddenly forgotten everything I must tell you. Perhaps it is for the better, and the remedy I had so been advised to absorb exceeds my expectation in serving my needs._

_I will write to you again soon._  


_Yours truly,_

 

 

Just underneath the final line, it seemed as if Todd had signed his name and then scratched it out again, rendering it almost completely illegible had Neil not known who the author of the letter was.

The room wanted to spin. Neil adjusted his stance just to make sure his feet were planted on the ground.

So many questions ran through Neil’s head at once: why did Todd write an unaddressed letter? How many more were there going to be? Was he going to be angry if he found out that Neil had read the letter? Or perhaps most importantly: _who was the letter addressed to?_

_No_ , Neil thought decidedly, _no,_ he could not ask _._ He began pacing. It was going to kill him to stay in ignorance, but he was just going to have to suffer. But by god, something inside of him was simultaneously soaring and plummeting to its death. Stopping abruptly, Neil reread the letter in his hands with desperation, drinking it in like a dying man to water.

Footsteps creaked in the hall just outside of the room, and Neil had never moved quicker in his life to fold and toss the letter back to where he had found it: half-hidden at the foot of Todd’s desk. It felt like the letter had seared burns onto his hands, and he prayed to whatever god that was out there that Todd wouldn’t suspect a thing. As the doorknob began to turn, Neil took milliseconds to evaluate his situation, trying to figure out how he’d look the least suspicious. By the time the door actually began to creak open, Neil stopped himself from thinking so hard and threw himself to the ground.

“N… Neil...?” Todd sounded concerned more than anything else, paused in what was open of the doorway with his books under his arm.

“I’m fine!” Neil squeaked. He could feel that his hair was mussed and his glasses askew, but he felt some compelling need to stay where he was on the floor, as if it would somehow convince Todd that he was not guilty of anything.

“Are… are you sure?”

His fingertips brushed the edges of his script behind him, and Neil was suddenly thankful for a new excuse just within his reach. “Yes, yes, of course… I just… fell.” He scrambled to his feet, throwing his script onto his own bed before dusting himself off. “I’m fine now.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good to hear.” If Neil hadn’t been so hyper-aware of everything about Todd, he probably would have missed how his eyes flickered down to where Neil had tossed the letter. He almost sighed in relief when Todd seemed to disregard it for now, instead moving to place all of his books on his desk. Neil collapsed on his own bed. “Are you going to study for much longer?”

“I… was just memorizing lines.” Todd shot him a questioning look. Neil waved his script in the air. “It wasn’t working very well.”

A rare smile crossed the other’s face. “I could tell.”

“ _Hey!_ ” Neil protested, chucking his script at his roommate. Todd ducked. “My lines and my _injury_ had nothing to do with each other!”

Todd reached for the script that had landed in his own blankets, flipping it open to a random page to read one of the highlighted lines. “ _Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars…_ ”

Neil lunged from his bed, cornering the other boy and tackling him. “God… give it back!”

“ _Telling- telling-...!_ ” Todd squirmed away from Neil’s hands, allowing him to finally snatch it away as he let a giggle slip from his lungs.

“ _Telling the bushes that thou look’st for wars, And wilt not come?_ ” Neil finished off, triumphantly staring down at Todd as he held his script as far away from the boy as possible.

“See?” Todd’s voice was breathless from overexertion and his hands were outstretched to shield himself from any attacks Neil could possibly give. “It must have worked better than you thought.”

“Hm.” Neil glanced down at the text in his hands, eyes glazing over as he stared at the letters of the cover sheet, just as they had prior. “Maybe.” Leaning forward, he swiped the top of Todd’s head with his script to dishevel his hair, heaving himself off of Todd’s bed as his arm retracted.

Throwing his script back onto his own desk, Neil crawled back onto his own bed, burying his face into his pillow as _my dearest beloved_ burned itself onto his brain.

 

* * *

 

Neil was going to do what any other teenage boy with a newfound emotion would do: he was going to be dramatic about it.

It had been about a week since Todd had peeked through the new crack in his shell and since Neil had discovered his letter, but the malignant emotion refused to refrain from pestering Neil, threatening to completely envelop even his dreams. Neil couldn’t even concentrate on his school studies, terrified that some insignificant feeling was somehow going to destroy his academic career and —most terrifyingly— enrage his father. It took a lot of denial just to keep it undercover, but as he was going through some poetry in the library, Neil decided he had to find some means as to vent away his dizziness.

Because there had been a light shower earlier that evening, everything was at least somewhat damp, and the odd droplet of water would echo around the _Indian Cave_ every minute or so. Some of the boys were bickering due to lack of sleep and the occasional trail of dampness would soak their clothing, but Neil was almost too dazed to care. Charlie even leaned forward and punched him in the knees when he forgot to proceed with the meeting, dumbly holding the book in front of himself and staring at the same line of loopy writing without actually processing anything. Luckily, everyone managed to laugh it off as Neil stumbled backwards, trying to kick Charlie back in protest and getting Meeks instead, accidentally starting a tiny brawl between those caught up in the crossfire. A few giggles slipped from Neil as he slid away from the mess he created, backing up so that he was cornered between Todd and the stone wall.

“Guys, guys; c’mon now, we need to start,” Neil pleaded, snorting as he watched Charlie smear some mud across Knox’s face.

“Only if you atone for your sins,” Charlie singsonged, still struggling to wipe his hands on Knox’s cheeks as the other tried desperately to lean away.

Neil laughed. “I humbly beg for your forgiveness.”

“You may proceed,” he proclaimed, waving his hand in a circular motion.

Rolling his eyes, Neil straightened his posture but stayed where he was. “Alright, let us commence with the umpteenth meeting of the _Dead Poets Society-_ ”

“Aw, how unprofessional,” someone interrupted.

“What? Don’t look at me — Todd’s the one who's supposed to be keeping minutes, not me.”

“Don’t throw Anderson under the bus like that, Neil.”

“Okay, _fine…_ Todd, which meeting is this?”

“How would I know?”

“Isn’t that your _job_ , Anderson?”

“ _Guys_ ,” Cameron said, exasperated, “Stop beating around the bush and just get this damn thing started already.”

As much as Neil was guilty of wholeheartedly enjoying teasing Todd, he righted the book in his hands and cleared his throat to quiet the other boys, who were currently groaning at Cameron for being _‘no fun’_ and even _‘kind of right despite the stick up his ass’_ (courtesy of Charlie).

“Alright, alright; I’ll just get over with this quickly and then we can get back to schedule.” With only a bit of scuffling, they finally quieted, occupied with handing out cigarettes and matches.

_" I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately,  
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life-" _

The usual snickers bounced around the other members at the line, but Neil spared them little mind.

_" -To put to rout all that was not life,_   
_And not when I had come to die…_   
_Discover…"_

Neil blinked. _Why was that line bugging him so much?_ The poem had rendered the group silent the first few times, but why was it just hitting Neil _now_? Did he have something that he itched to apply it to now? The last line flooded out of him in one breath:

“Discover that I had not lived.”

Neil continued to stare at the page, tracing the loopy writing with his eyes as if it was a set of  foreign squiggles. It was almost as if someone had taken the book and tossed it about, shredded and made the pages filthy, and then finally placed it back in his hands upside-down. Neil realized that this was probably what Mr. Keating had meant by seeing things from a different perspective, but he had yet to figure out where it all came from.

Solitary applause was what drew Neil back into the meeting, and as he glanced up, he was met with Charlie clapping. In mere seconds, the rest of the members had joined in, whooping obnoxiously as a group of teens does as soon as applause gets out of hand.

“Ten points for drama!” Meeks called out, and Neil suddenly realized that his internal conflict had been fully visible on his face the entire time. Trying to laugh it off, he passed the book on to Pitts, sitting back so he could regain his composure.

Tonight’s meeting was no different than usual (including the fact that Charlie always had a surprise up his sleeve; this time, it was a toad that had been procured from his pocket as he recited bits and pieces from _The Frog Prince_ , complete with a dramatic reenactment of select scenes  
_( Open the door, my princess dear,_  
 _Open the door to thy true love here!_  
 _And mind the words that thou and I said_  
 _By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade. ))_  
and most of the boys managed to get at least one poem in. It was only when Cameron was trying to defend himself for having read the same poem two meetings in a row ( _it’s filled with depth and intellect,_ he had insisted) that Neil stood up, diffusing their bickering by attempting to move on.

“Are we getting a show tonight, Perry?” Pitts asked, helping direct everyone’s attention Neil’s way. Neil smiled mysteriously, fishing out a folded paper from his pockets.

“Would you like me to?”

The boys all cheered, egging him on. “What did you bring us?”

“Only a poem this time.” Neil took a final drag of his smoke before dropping it to the ground, rubbing it into the soil with his toe.

It would probably be infinitely easier to vent the odd dizzying feeling from earlier by putting on the mask of the narrator, reciting the words of another man, so that’s exactly what Neil did. Taking a deep breath, he centered himself, removing himself from being _Neil_ and letting fiery life spring into his eyes, passion seeping into even his voice as he read off his own notes that he had scrawled down earlier at the library.

 

_“Out of the mid-wood’s twilight_   
_Into the meadow’s dawn,_   
_Ivory-limbed and brown-eyed_   
_Flashes my Faun!_

_He skips through the copses singing,_   
_And his shadow dances along,_   
_And I know not which I should follow,_   
_Shadow or song!_

_O Hunter, snare me his shadow!_   
_O Nightingale, catch me his strain!_   
_Else moonstruck with music and madness,_   
_I track him in vain!”_

 

Though he had not been interrupted by the usual jests, the rest of the boys erupted into applause once he finished speaking, praising him for his fantastic acting skills with the accompaniment a few wolf whistles. Neil’s sight, however, had been planted on Todd at some point before he finished his poem, not straying even in his silence. Todd stared back, a curious but impressed look about him.

“ _In the Forest_ ,” Neil finally announced to him, relaxing his shoulders. “By Oscar Wilde.”

“Kind of fitting, huh?” Knox mused, then being interrupted by Pitts: “Because you want to live deep and suck the marrow out of ‘ _life’_!” Neil watched a few of the boys burst into laughter.

As he browsed the Dead Poets sitting at his feet, he came to realize that Charlie was the only one who hadn’t reacted whatsoever to Neil’s performance, preoccupied with his cigarette. It was only a few seconds after Neil noticed him that Charlie took advantage of a momentary lull in conversation to pipe up.

“It sounds like you’re in love, Perry.”

All of the boys immediately fell silent.

Neil was rooted to his spot. It felt like time itself had paused for a moment, where an escaped breeze hovered above him like a cold spot and droplets of water floated and stuck to his face. Tree roots had grown from the soles of his feet, grounding him and dragging him down to the depths of hell. Hell, he could even argue that he could feel hell’s flames already, being as how hot he suddenly felt.

“I- I… _What?_ Charlie, what could you _possibly_ mean by that?” Neil stuttered, so flabbergasted that the muscles in his face simply forgot how to function. Charlie only shrugged.

“Change the pronouns and it couldn’t be more obvious.” Perhaps the most infuriating part about the boy was that he hadn’t even glanced at Neil _once_ throughout their entire interaction, and for the first time in what he could remember, Neil found himself almost unable to answer when Charlie finally _did_ turn to him, grinning slyly. “So? Who’s the lucky gal?”

The entire atmosphere of the meeting did a one-eighty degree turn, and suddenly all the boys were calling out and wolf whistling again, pestering Neil for more details. Only Charlie and Todd stayed where they were, the first smugly watching the chaos he stirred up and the latter just… sitting there, watching the scene unfold in front of him with his mouth hanging open slightly.

“See, Knoxious? _That’s_ why girls swoon.”

“Goddammit, Charlie: I’m not in love. How could you even _say_ something like that?”

Charlie waggled his eyebrows. “The soul of words betrays a man’s conscience.”

“ _Who_ ever said that?”

“Me. Just now.”

“Those weren’t even _my_ words.”

“They were as soon as they left your mouth.”

“I’m not in _love_ , dammit.”

“You know what they all say:-” Charlie changed his voice to imitate their headmaster, “ _Carpe diem, carpe noctum, carpe natem._ ” Meeks burst into a laughing fit with Cameron only a few seconds behind.

With chants of _Travesty! Horror! Decadence! Excrement!_ from the members to round off the evening, Neil found himself possibly even more agitated than he had previous to the meeting.

 

* * *

 

Throughout the day succeeding the Dead Poets meeting, Neil found it difficult to concentrate. It was, of course, in part due to the fact that the meeting had taken a chip into his already dwindling sleeping schedule with all of the studying he was doing, but he couldn’t help but be antagonized by Todd’s letter and Charlie’s words. He was so distracted, in fact, that he couldn’t even focus on Keating’s reading of _Hamlet_ , which was already turning out to be one of his favourite Shakespeares. Keating must have taken note of Neil’s absentmindedness (especially considering the fact that he noticed Keating’s gaze oftentimes flickering towards him as he zoned out, momentarily prying before returning to the text), but said nothing about it, probably not wanting to showcase personal issues in front of the entire class.

They reached the end of the third act by the time the school bell rang, and the rest of the students began to move around to get ready for their next class while Neil remained in his desk, still not having mentally processed that the class was over. When Cameron nudged his shoulder, Neil shook himself and blinked, starting suddenly to rush and put his books away. As he was closing his notebook, he saw Keating staring at him briefly, smiling in that mischievous way he occasionally did as if he knew something you didn’t. Standing up suddenly with his chair scraping across the floor, Neil hesitated on his feet, dazedly watched his classmates file out of the classroom.

“Not in a big rush, I suppose?” Keating called out to who could only be him, and Neil flinched slightly, freezing like a deer in headlights.

Sighing in defeat, he held his books close to him, eyeing the last of his peers shuffling out of the room. He waited a few more seconds before he tentatively crept over to his teacher, trying to pretend that he was still his normal self by casually sitting on the edge of a desk. Keating stepped down from the front of the class to be at eye-level with Neil, smiling patiently.

“No class this period, I suppose?” Neil joked, throwing half a smile. Keating only chuckled, shaking his head slightly.

“There’s a lot on your mind,” Keating guessed — or rather, he _stated_. He sounded too sure of himself to be a guess. Neil wasn’t quite sure how to respond, ending up with something between a nod and a shrug.

“When is there not?”

“Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of times. I can practically hear the gears in your head jam now.”

Neil hummed, glancing out the window to avoid direct eye contact with his teacher. “... How well do you know Oscar Wilde?”

“Wilde? A madman. Brilliant, but an absolute madman.”

“What about his poetry?”

“His poetry?” Keating pouted, staring off into a corner of the room behind Neil as he thought. “His poetry is not usually what he’s acclaimed for, but I suppose I am somewhat familiar with it.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I just thought…” Keating didn’t seem like he would say anything until Neil finished speaking, so Neil gripped the edge of the desk he was sitting on and steeled himself. “Are you familiar with _In the Forest_?”

“Possibly? Remind me, would you?”

“Something like… erm… _Out of the mid-wood’s twilight… Into the meadow’s dawn…_ ”

“Oh, yes… _flashes the fawn_ , or something, no?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“I believe I do remember it now — I think I even read it recently. Is that what’s been on your mind?”

“I-” Neil shifted on his spot, digging his nails into the wood of the desk, “I was wondering what your take on its meaning was.”

Keating stared up at the ceiling again, rubbing his chin. “The meaning? I didn’t think it would be that difficult to decipher.” He glanced back down to Neil, scanning his face before smiling reassuringly. “My impression was that Wilde had found a lover to fawn over.”

“A _lover_?”

“Why, yes, of course. He’s chasing after someone madly — that’s all the meaning it pertains, really.”

“But a _lover_? Why did Wilde use masculine pronouns?”

Keating seemed bemused. “Didn't you know? Wilde was one of the most exorbitant homosexuals in recorded history; he never kept it a secret.”

_Oh_. It wasn’t like Neil hadn’t known, but it was something he didn’t really think about. In hindsight, Neil didn’t exactly know why it slipped his mind, but it was probably because of the societal stigma and some attempt to draw Wilde’s works away from his flamboyant lifestyle.

Now that he really digested Keating’s definition of the poem, Neil mentally kicked himself for having chosen it in the first place. Charlie was right… _why did he even pick it?_ The more he tried to pry into his own reasoning, the queasier he began to feel, so he forced the agitation from the meeting away for the time being.

When Neil finally drew himself back to reality, he realized that Keating was staring at him, waiting for some sort of a reaction. Just that slight embarrassment of freezing up made him stall for a bit longer, mouth hanging open slightly as he stared at his professor.

“I- uh… er…”

“It’s a fact many scholars have a difficult time coming to terms with,” Keating supplied for him, completely unfazed by Neil drawing a blank. “Were you studying some of his work?”

Neil shook his head quicker than he probably needed to. “N- no! No, not- not exactly. I… I just found it to- to read for… for a _meeting_.” With the extra emphasis on the last word, Keating nodded in understanding.

“ _Ah_. I see.”

“W-well, Mr. Keating, you see: I’m going to be late for my next class-”

“I’d be surprised if you already weren’t.”

“Yes, yes… sorry for keeping you. Thank you for your help.”

Keating winked. “Anytime, my boy.”

With a quick nod, Neil finally scuffled out of the classroom with his books held tightly against his chest, mentally calculating how fast he’d have to run to make it to Biology on time.

 

* * *

 

Todd had just left for a shower. Both Neil and Todd had come back early from supper, having not been too hungry in the first place, so there wasn’t really anyone around their floor. Because of that, Neil hoped that Todd would end up taking longer in the shower, as they would be empty anyhow. Neil didn’t want to think too hard about it, but that was mainly because he had a more important task on his mind.

After Neil found Todd’s letter and narrowly got away with the act, he noticed that within an hour, the paper was gone. When he inconspicuously checked his roommate’s wastebasket as he got up to get ready for bed, he noticed the bin was just as empty as it was before. Evidently, Todd had deemed the letter important enough to save, and was probably hiding it somewhere, away from the prying and judgemental world.

Now, the only issue was _where_ Todd could possibly be hiding the letter (or, _letters_ , as he had mentioned that he was to write more soon). The hiding spot couldn’t have been too far away for convenience, but there were also so many places it could be within the confines of their room. Neil leaned back in his chair, head dropping back as he groaned. He’d have to cut to the chase if he even wanted to find these letters in the first place.

Neil was probably sneaking around in a more suspicious manner than anyone would in their own room, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was treading around a sleeping dragon. First, he dropped to his knees, crawling across the floorboards to thoroughly check underneath Todd’s bed, desk, and closet. It was only when he was greeted by a noseful of dust bunnies that he vaguely remembered how intrusive his actions were; though he didn’t even want to imagine what Todd’s reaction would be to find Neil rummaging through his things for an even more personal item, Neil was desperate to find the letter(s), as if they would somehow be the answer to all of his agitation. Sneezing, Neil brushed off his uniform of dust before making his way over to the desk drawers.

Drawers were a bit more difficult to tackle. Nothing of the students was locked at Hellton, but a lot of the most loved pieces of woodwork had a built-in alarm system, where the mere act of trying to open the drawer was a nightmare. Neil squeezed his eyes shut and prayed that there was still no one out in the hall as he gently tugged one of the tougher ones open, only to come up with a stack of new and used paper. Perhaps Todd wouldn’t have used one of those drawers as a hiding place, as it would primarily be difficult to get into there.

Though the drawers were debatably well checked (Neil did his best to rustle through books and notebooks in case the letter would loosely fall out), he became more desperate as to check through Todd’s closet, patting down every surface just to make sure. The more ground he covered, the more vividly aware Neil came to the fact that Todd’s shower was already dragging on quite a bit, and he was lucky with the time he was already given. Neil even crouched down, running his hands against the baseboards on Todd’s half of the room, just to check if there were any loose boards.

With his search all for naught, Neil stood in the middle of the room, hands resting on the top of his head as he stared at Todd’s possessions bleakly. There was no reason for him to feel so distraught over something that made him so guilty, but here he was, absolutely desperate to find Todd’s letter again, just to make sure it was real. _Why was that?_ Was it because maybe if he read over it again, it would hold all the answers to his unidentified emotions? Was it because it was an incredible piece of writing, a breathtaking masterpiece, too brilliant to be hidden somewhere collecting dust?

Neil’s eyes finally drifted to Todd’s closet again, slowly wondering if he had _really_ covered every corner of the room. Sure, he had been distracted by the odd note or comment Todd had left amongst his possessions, but maybe that had been enough to distract him entirely… unless…

Glancing over to the door (just in case), Neil moved towards Todd’s desk again, stepping up onto the wooden chair. He leaned against the closet for a few seconds to regain his balance, but then his hand crept up to the very top (and very dusty) area of the closet, right beside some larger storage boxes that looked untouched.

_Bingo_.

An uncontrollable grin creeped across Neil’s face as he flailed his hand, patting down the surface to get a better idea of how many pieces of paper there actually were. Of course, there was always the possibility that it _wasn’t_ the letter, but why else would a single (and now that he felt it, two other) folded paper(s) be hidden up in a place that was unused otherwise?

Right before he could properly grasp the paper between his fingers, his ears were abruptly tuned to the creaking of footsteps out in the hallway, and the surge of adrenaline almost knocked Neil off Todd’s chair. Luckily, he was able to make his way down without too much noise, but he still scraped his arm against the edge of the closet, possibly garnering a splinter or two, if not an odd bruise. By the time the doorknob was twisting, Neil was already staggering back to his own bed, holding his arm and cursing softly.

Todd barely paid any attention to Neil whatsoever. Though he half-heartedly glanced at his roommate (“... Acting again?” “Something like that.”), he ended up disregarding him in favour of looking for some pyjamas, changing into them quietly as he dried his hair. Neil’s eyes drifted away out of habit, but this time he caught himself staring from his peripheral vision, drawing as much skin to his memory as he could before he could catch himself.

 

* * *

 

Luckily, the next time Neil had the room to himself was the day after when Todd had said something about going to speak with Keating before leaving with a notebook in his arms. Neil had to resist jumping to his feet in excitement, avoiding drawing any suspicion to himself by casually nodding and bidding him a safe trip.

As soon as the door clicked shut, however, Neil dropped his pen. He was still wearing his reading glasses, but the textbook he was reading was pushed away, unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Todd’s letters had been on Neil’s mind all day. Neil thought he was worse off after he had discovered Todd’s first letter, but oh how wrong he was. With the new knowledge of where Todd was keeping his letters, Neil was absolutely lost in everything he did, even berated in class for not paying attention. His friends noticed something was off this time too, asking if he was okay (of course he was) and teasing him over meals. The only thing that ran through his mind was the fact that Todd’s letters were so close to his reach; he was like a child, sitting in front of the christmas tree and gazing at all of the assorted gifts a week before Christmas. Neil even had to persuade himself away from getting up in the middle of the night to read the new letters, convincing himself that Todd would wake up with the noise or light.

But now… now Todd was gone. Only a day later. Neil had the room to himself for… _how long?_ Keating’s office was in a separate building, and God knew how long Todd wanted to consult with their professor. He could probably give himself a good half an hour — twenty minutes at the very least.

Standing up, Neil crept around his chair, more aware of the creak of the floorboards than he had ever been before. He had never thought of himself to be too careful, but he detoured to the door, opening it slowly and checking the hallway. _What if Todd decided he had forgotten something?_

Neil glanced both ways. _Empty_. Even Charlie and Cameron’s door was shut.

Nevertheless, Neil crept out, deciding on using a quick bathroom break. It was foolproof not only to make sure Todd was far away enough but also to let him settle the odd nerves that were beginning to rise into his chest.

When he got back, he shut the door quietly, the doorknob digging into his back as he leaned against it, almost as if the action would barricade anyone from entering. Taking a deep breath, he stared at where the letters evidently were for a few seconds before stepping up to and on Todd’s chair to retrieve them.

There were three folded papers in Neil’s hands. _Three_. He was almost quivering with excitement, pacing around the room to release the jitteriness.

Neil recognized the first letter with a bit of inspection; it had the paper that was slightly faded and softer to the touch, not to mention better folded. As for the other two, the paper was still relatively crisp in comparison, having only been touched by Todd once in writing and Neil once in passing.

Just to check (and almost to put off the revelation of the new content), Neil put down the other two letters and unfolded the first one, skimming the handwriting to check if everything was still there.

It was.

Everything was still exactly how he remembered it; everything from the _dearest beloved_ to the scratched out signature.

Refolding the letter, Neil set it down and turned his attention to the other two. Very carefully, he chose his first victim, pacing to the very centre of the room before unfolding it. Readjusting his glasses, Neil drank every word in with steady repose.

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

_I believe I find an immense satisfaction in writing to you. Your simultaneous presence and absence and your silent listening offers me a relief beyond my current understanding. Words that swirl freely in my mind become a blockage, lodged in my throat and unable to escape, for the strength of a fear of imperfection strangles me in the same attempt to release these very same words that find freedom within me. It is only here with your comforting image that I am near carefree, unafraid of the threat perfection so holds over my life._

_Writing is not unlike poetry, yet still so very different. In poetry, I am unrestrained by the limits of grammar, free to make all sense and no sense at all. In writing, I am still free to communicate, now with the freedom to transcribe my thoughts directly which others (if they are so authorized) may decipher the inspiration of my entire being. Both writing and poetry are funny in that way: a fragment of the author’s soul is left to be showcased to, to be tampered with, to be hidden from, and to be released to a fleeting crowd. Yet, nevertheless, words are the only thing we live for. Writing is not unlike toying with language; every so often, someone will come up with a string of words so insignificant apart but a new religion in union._

_Even these words have once been wedged in my lungs, but now I can breathe freely as these words flow from my hand. A phantasmic visage is a better audience than loneliness, so I will cling desperately to your idea until it dissipates from my concern._  


_Yours truly._

 

 

Neil reached the end of the letter (this time, sans signature) abruptly, as if it were somehow a surprise to him. Very quickly, he read over the entire letter again before hopping in his spot, beaming.

_By god, my roommate really is a genius._

He wanted to whoop. Oh, how he wanted to make some noise, but the subtle bustle of other students around him reminded Neil of his surroundings. Still, his eyes gleefully darted across the page in his hands over and over again, syllables forming on his lips before he realized he was making a sound. With the corners of his lips uncontrollably tugging upwards, Neil recited the lines partially under his breath, shivering with a thrill of daring any time his voice raised to a conversational volume — anything above a whisper was verging on too dangerous, close to breaking the spell that had settled over the boy.

Pausing in his gaiety, Neil felt the realness of the situation begin to sink in. First of all, he was intruding on something so intimately personal that it was like he had discovered his own peeping hole into Todd’s mind. Though he had gained more confidence with the creation of that impromptu poem in Keating’s class, Todd was still hesitant to open up so suddenly, still so closed off from the rest of the friend group. Neil was violating what was probably a coping mechanism for Todd, solely for the mere satisfaction of his own desire.

His desire was somewhat of an extension to the realness. Being so naive to his temptation, Neil could feel himself become greedy, wanting more and more from the letters. He wanted to know why Todd had written in such a bittersweet manner, lamenting about an issue still unclear to Neil. He wanted to know why Todd didn’t simply express any of these thoughts to Neil, who was more than happy to sacrifices hours upon hours per night just to listen to the boy speak. He wanted to know who the recipient of the letter was intended to be. He wanted to know —perhaps most of all— why he was so intrigued, filled with a strange mixture of jealousy and curiosity regarding the unknown recipient of the letters.

Frowning briefly, Neil refolded the letter and placed it back down beside the first one.

Nevertheless, none of his thoughts had the power to mar his initial intentions, so his hand reached for the last letter. The paper was so fresh that it nearly unfolded itself.

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

_The other night when I was lying in bed, waiting for a slumber to carry me away, I had the queerest revelation. You, barely present amidst the darkness, still took it upon yourself to infiltrate my thoughts, and I lay there pondering, happily dozing in your fabricated companionship. I lay there wondering a while, wondering what has so drawn my soul to yours, and realized that it was nothing less than the juxtaposition of our idiosyncrasies:_

_I am your words but you are my voice._

_This is not to say, of course, that this mutualism has ever been intentional. Perhaps it is in my ignorant desire that I have faith for your end of the bargain to evolve and be wholly intentional as it has in mine, but this is nothing more than a child’s dream, unfathomable under the god that so watches over us. Nevertheless, with the bravery and confidence you exude that I could only aspire to aquire, you have given me more than I could ever ask for, and never in my life before had my eyes been opened to a future I could actually visualize. I must not, of course, discredit Keating, as well as all of the Dead Poets, but it is you that leads this parade, divining my potential before I could envision it myself._

_Maybe I do write out what I see of your soul. Maybe I do offer the phrasing you grasp for and the content destined to contribute to your brilliance. Maybe I do cling to the sound of your voice, driving me into a cyclical continuum where your expression is the inspiration behind my every motive._

_I am your words and you are my voice._

_Together we hold an asomatous duality, seen or unseen, that maintains a balance we unwittingly crave._

 

_Yours truly._

 

 

Neil was breathless — _how could he not be?_ The letter gave such a raw and intimate insight of Todd that Neil wasn’t quite sure if his heart was thudding out of sheer amazement, or perhaps the small fact that his mind developed an inability to cease connecting himself to the recipient of the letter. Just that mere consideration thrust him into endless confusion. This writing was evidently some derivative of a love letter — it was utterly _impossible_ for the message to have belonged to him. With that conclusion, Neil was spun into even more confusion, unable to quell the bud of jealousy that blossomed in his chest.

It was these feelings rather than those of guilt or intrusion or the concern of the length of Todd’s meeting with Keating that Neil decided he was finished for the night, worried that he may have prodded too deeply into a Pandora’s Box. He knew with unending regret that he would revisit the letters later (and not to mention the fact that the letters were undoubtedly burned into his memory at this point), so he folded up the final letter and collected the others, setting them back in their hiding spot. Though they were out of his sight now, the top corner of Todd’s closet felt glaring, deafening as its presence pounded the back of Neil’s brain.

Todd returned to the room only a few minutes later only to find that Neil was curled statically underneath his covers, eyes closed to shut out the world around him.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil digs himself into a deeper hole as he steadily becomes addicted to Todd and has a few thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW yall sorry that took so long, the IB papers took up a ridiculous amount of energy, and I'm still stuck with an insane amount of work i have to get done (the last few thousand words are not even really edited either so i apologize for that i guess). however, i hope this chunk of a chapter makes up for it? :D also, as you can see, i finally decided how long this (was going to be oneshot) fic is going to end up, but the next two chapters (the climax and an epilogue) will be considerably shorter. please look forward to them!! even tho i might still take a bit of time, as IB exams start next week and im actually less than prepared :)))
> 
> thank you for all the lovely comments and support! i did not expect my writing to be so well received in such a tiny fandom, and i'm glad to have contributed :)
> 
> all of the writing that isn't mine is referenced at some point, except for the first poem that Charlie recites, which is just an Emily Dickenson
> 
> oh, and yeah i tried to finish this for Anderperry April Day 29: Love Letters, but my sleep schedule has been strangling me and God has personally been trying to snipe me, so,, sorry for it being a day late i guess :(

 

“Hey, Pittsie: didya bring your jaw harp with ya?”

Charlie was, once again, diverting everyone’s attention away from teasing Knox about Chris. He had stood up (as much as he could in the short cave), leaning against the dryest wall he could reach and holding _Five Centuries of Poetry_ open to a page he had randomly flipped to. Neil, having had his sight of Knox blocked with Charlie standing up, scooched over to allow his friend more room, pressing closer to Todd. Todd, in turn, offered his pipe to Neil, who took it naturally.

“I sure as hell did, Dalton.” Just to prove his point, the instrument that had magically been procured into his hand reached his mouth, and Pitts proceeded to be incredibly obnoxious with it.

“Perfect! What do you say about a good ol’ duet?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Pitts laughed, immediately playing some rhythmic drone to accompany Charlie. Delighted, Charlie began, his voice whimsical.

 

_“"Nature" is what we see—_  
_The Hill—the Afternoon—_  
 _Squirrel—Eclipse— the Bumble bee—_  
 _Nay—Nature is Heaven—_  
 _Nature is what we hear—_  
 _The Bobolink—the Sea—_  
 _Thunder—the Cricket—_  
 _Nay—Nature is Harmony—_  
 _Nature is what we know— Yet have no art to say—_  
 _So impotent Our Wisdom is_  
 _To her Simplicity.”_

 

The boys oohed and ahhed, Pitts making do with his jaw harp. Charlie bowed extravagantly, tossing the book haphazardly into his ‘crowd’ (which ended up unfortunately being Todd’s face — or it would have, had he not struggled to catch it in time).

“Charlie Dalton: our noble countryman!” Meeks proclaimed, tone uncharacteristically flat for the nature of his words. Charlie winked back at him, unfazed.

“We’re all countrymen out here, Meeksie! A secret society of private school boys, hidden away in the wilderness!”

“It’s not so isolated when we can drive into town in-”

“Hellton is a noble institution that raises young boys into pretentious-”

“Oh, as if _that’s_ all it is-”

Neil laughed along with the banter, but it took him a moment to realize that Todd was only partially listening. He let his laughter ebb away as he turned his attention to the boy beside him.

Todd had _Five Centuries of Poetry_ open on his lap, carefully flicking between precisely chosen pages. He’d glance up to throw a smaller chuckle when someone had said something particularly loud, but then his attention would dip back down to the pages, scanning the literature for the content he seeked. As Neil leaned over ever so slightly to peer over his shoulder, he noticed that Todd had stopped on a section on Walt Whitman.

Gently, Neil nudged Todd’s side with his elbow, startling him slightly. Todd’s head whipped over to face him, greeted with a mischievous grin that didn’t look like it settled well with the boy.

“You should read something,” Neil suggested, just loud enough for Todd to hear. Though he had been participating otherwise, Todd suddenly looked horrified at the mere suggestion, glancing down at _Five Centuries_ and almost slamming it shut if Neil had not darted his hand out to save the page.

“N- No, Neil, I-” Todd fumbled, adorably awkward as he was when he became frustrated, “I- I just- I simply can’t- can’t _do_ that, Neil.”

“Why not?” Neil pouted, consciously making his eyes wider to coerce his friend. “You didn’t write Whitman’s poems.”

He shook his head. “L- look, Neil. I’m not going to do it.”

“ _Todd-_ ”

“ _No_. Did you already forget the- the deal you- we made?”

“... Which deal?”

“The one where I’d only keep time for the meetings.”

“And you’ve been doing a grand job of that so far.”

Todd elbowed him hard enough that Neil was pushed away towards the cavern wall. “Shut up.” Neil giggled at his reaction.

“Aw, c’mon, Todd. How many meetings have we had? Aren’t you comfortable by now?”

“ _What’s_ the _problem?_ ” Charlie’s voice cut through, demanding but lighthearted and somewhat in a Midwestern accent.

Neil immediately hopped on the attention to use to his defence: “Todd won’t read for us.”

“But he doesn’t read,” Knox interjected, gesturing at Todd’s startled face.

“Aw, why not read a verse or two?” Pitts dissented, also shoving Todd’s other side with his shoulder.

“Drop it, guys,” Charlie chided them, always the observant one with other’s sensitivity. “He isn’t going to read it.”

Having recovered from their roughhouse, Neil scooched closer to Todd, propping his elbow on his knee so he could rest his chin in the palm of his hand and tilt his head to gaze up at him.

_Oh yeah… Todd’s writing._ Suddenly remembering the most recent of Todd’s letters was like a punch to the gut, but he stared at the other’s face to quietly ponder the meaning Todd intended behind his words.

Was Neil jealous? Maybe just a bit. Was Neil going to forcibly and selfishly place himself in the letter recipient’s shoes, just to see what he could get out of it?

_Because, if you are my words… then…_

“I’ll be your voice,” Neil proposed, confidence oozing from his tone. He blinked, almost surprised that he had said those words out loud himself.

Todd’s mouth snapped shut, having been in the middle of some retort to Meeks. The other Dead Poets watched in amusement as Todd turned to look down at Neil.

“W- _What?_ ”

“If- If you don’t want to read, then I’ll read it for you,” Neil reiterated, quirking a smile. “You _found_ a poem, did you not?”

“You’ll… You’ll be my _voice_?”

Neil faltered for a moment before nodding slowly. “That’s what I said.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Charlie raise an eyebrow and then hide a confused but subtle smirk.

Though he moved as if he was trapped in molasses, Todd opened _Five Centuries_ back up to where he’d had it before, handing the book to Neil without breaking eye contact. He tapped the page with the poem he selected before leaving the book in Neil’s possession. Gripping it tightly, Neil stood up, stepping forward so that his head didn’t hit the overhanging rock.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Neil began, winking to the rest of the Dead Poets, “I’ll be your Todd Anderson for the night.” Everyone laughed and Todd rolled his eyes. “The poem that has been selected is… Walt Whitman’s _Are You The New Person Drawn Towards Me?_ ” He glanced down to Todd, who nodded in confirmation. Beaming, Neil continued. “Alright, excellent. As per Todd’s request, I will be reciting Whitman’s _Are You The New Person Drawn Towards Me?_.” He cleared his throat before starting.

 

_“Are you the new person drawn toward me?_  
_To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose;_  
 _Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?_  
 _Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?_  
 _Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction?_  
 _Do you think I am trusty and faithful?_  
 _Do you see no further than this façade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?_  
 _Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?_  
 _Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?”_

 

When Neil finished, the other boys hummed in acknowledgement. Neil stared at the poem for a while longer, finally digesting its meaning now that he had the opportunity to recite it once. He frowned at its apparent message.

“Do we have another appearance of loverboy Perry?” Pitts joked, Cameron and Meeks laughing along with him.

“No,” Neil chuckled, somewhat unconvincingly. “I was just reading the poem Todd chose.” When he turned to Todd to defend himself, he was caught off guard by the way the other was looking at him.

Todd… seemed like he was searching for something in Neil. Like he was trying to find a conclusion to an issue that only concerned him. Like he was trying to convince himself of something.

“Is everyone turning into Knox?” Charlie teased, punching Knox in the shoulder. Knox groaned in protest, mumbling something about it being ‘not his fault’ and ‘he wasn’t like _that_ about Chris’ (to which most of the boys happily disagreed).

“Jesus, Charlie, what the hell are you talking about?” Though, Neil’s struggle was more to defend himself, as he was all-too aware of the letters Todd wrote.

“Remember what I said last week?”

“You don’t even remember what you did this morning.”

Charlie winked. “The soul of words betrays a man’s conscience?”

“Tell that to Todd, genius.”

“Hm?” Todd finally tuned back into the conversation at the mention of his name. “Hey, no-”

“Sorry, but,” Charlie shrugged, grinning devilishly, “At this point it didn’t make a difference who it was directed to.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, nothing,” he smiled sweetly.

Neil was going to ask him what he meant after the meeting.

 

* * *

 

There must have been a gap in his conscience, a blip in his memory, but Neil all too soon gained access to Todd’s letters again, having forgotten how they so tormented him last time.

Then again, it was inevitable for his burning curiosity to get to him, so here he was, standing on Todd’s chair and reaching for the top of the closet. This time, his hand returned with four pieces of folded paper. Grinning triumphantly, Neil sifted through each one to select the newest counterpart and leave the rest in their hiding spot.

Though it was slightly fresher, the new letter still wasn’t too crisp: it probably was written soon after Neil had read the other two. This time, Neil crawled up onto his bed, leaning his back against the wall to read in comfort. Nudging his reading glasses all the way back up his nose, Neil scrutinized the new letter.

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

_I find it odd that I still hesitate to write to you on this subject, considering this exercise is meant to render you merely a figment of my imagination as I write, but the event was so striking that I find myself itching to express it somewhere._

_See, not once had it occurred to me that I would reach these depths of helplessness, but when I discovered myself alone in the showers, isolated by pure chance, I was greeted with your ghostly presence. What must have been a siren in your image approached me as I was bare and defenseless. I watched the spectacle behind my eyes in awe, succumbing readily to such a sly temptation presented before me. All at once, I felt warm hands slither around my torso and weave their way down my back, embracing me carefully in the most wondrous warmth. It was at this point, I believe, that I had already given in, seeking the slow massage and pressure worked under the magic of your palms. Long had it been since I’d given in to such allurement, but this felt so new and so exciting. The feeling of wet lips making love to my jaw and clavicle sparked electric emotion within me, rolling through my heart and my lungs to my groin with crushing intensity. When it was your rich, welcoming eyes that greeted me and your teasing, adamant voice that called my name, I realized that I must have spoiled myself too much, and everything reached a glorious, glorious peak almost too soon. Down you washed, trickled down my skin, into the drain where the rest of my sins and grime winds down into a guilty well._

_Though I was able to step past the old shower curtain cleaned and fresh, I’m afraid there is a more permanent mark plaguing my mind now. I pray God will forgive me when I see your face, reminded all too well of the siren’s image that has since been pleasantly haunting me._

_Yours truly_

Every muscle in Neil’s body was frozen stiff so that even his lips were parted in a disbelieving gape.

Of course, he’d suspected that something similar had occurred when both he and Todd returned from dinner so early and Neil had the opportunity to rummage through Todd’s belongings, but never had he imagined that he would revisit Todd’s perspective of the evening in shockingly vivid detail. There was some great battle presently happening in Neil’s head, fighting down the struggling curiosity to fully visualize the letter to its full potential.

Almost scared to see if it was really real, Neil folded the letter and set it down in his lap, bumping his head back against the wall to let himself clear his mind.

The door suddenly creaked open, violently flinging Neil from his reverence. He even banged his head against the wall as he struggled, shoving the letter in his lap under his leg as inconspicuously as he could. As he rubbed where his skull ached, Neil blinked at the intruder, who was now standing in the middle of their room.

“Oh… Neil?” Todd stared at him, longer than was comfortable for Neil’s guilt.

“I’m okay,” Neil grimaced, sitting up straight and trying to hide Todd’s letter even more amidst his leg and blankets. His memory (his oh so unfortunate memory) suddenly reminded him of the letter’s contents, and Neil was forced to dig his nails into his thigh to stop himself from thinking about it ( _Jesus Christ_ — he could only imagine how red he was now). “Why- ... Did you forget something?”

Todd perked up. “Oh, yeah! I forgot my latin textbook.” Turning to his desk for a moment, he searched his drawers for his missing possession. Neil had never been more thankful for his earlier self having put away the rest of the letters.

In the few moments that Todd was busy, Neil took a deep breath out, trying to calm himself in vain. He leaned back against the wall, making sure that the letter was well hidden with just a glance before closing his eyes.

“N- Neil?”

Neil cracked an eye open. “Hm?” He prayed that Todd wouldn’t be able to hear his heartbeat speed up.

“If you’re too tired, you don’t have to come to study group tonight.”

Neil almost let out an audible sigh. He opened both of his eyes to smile lazily at his friend.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me. I just need to grab my things and then I’ll be right on over — you can run on ahead.”

“Are you sure? I can find an excuse-?”

Neil laughed. “Since when do you find excuses? For me, of all people?”

“Get off it, Neil. I’ll tell them you’re running behind.”

“Give Charlie my love.” Neil called out as Todd reached the door again, making obscene kissing noises at him as Todd laughed.

As soon as the door was closed behind him, Neil sprang up, grabbing for the letter half-hidden in his covers and not even bothering to clamber on Todd’s chair to hide it with the rest of its brothers. Rubbing his eyes, he brushed himself off, concentrating on his breathing for a few seconds longer before he searched for his own studying material.

 

* * *

 

Neil had never suffered more in his life — he was absolutely _sure_ of it.

It was already well past dinner time as well as club, and everyone had retired to their rooms to either study or rest. Neil had showered directly after soccer practice (which was entertaining in its usual ruckus that stirred up with the rest of his team) and was now lying in his bed with his biology textbook open. Just across the room, Todd was sat at his desk, scribbling something out onto a sheet of paper.

See, the issue wasn’t that Neil had to study. Studying was a part of his life (whether he liked it or not — or rather, he was forced to like it), and though it may have been a portion of the issue, his inattention was the product of something else entirely.

Though Neil did not want to admit it to himself, the issue was definitely Todd’s letter.

The other three letters had been fine (well, with the exception of the third, where it began to explicitly investigate the significance of this dearest beloved to Todd), but the fourth… the fourth was something else entirely. Neil knew exactly what it illustrated, of course, but what made it so much worse was the fact that Neil’s mind was addicted to its words, barely soothed as he let himself imagine a sliver of the situation. _Why did it have to be Todd in a compromising situation that Neil clinged to?_ That would just be problem for another date though, as per usual.

So far, the crisp memory of the fourth letter was far more appealing than the blurry diagrams of a developing fetus, so Neil flopped to his side and stared at the wall instead.

Where did the letter start? Something about hesitance to write out the memory, which was a fair point, as Neil didn’t think he could ever write out something so covertly personal himself (but perhaps that image was ruined considering the fact that he had discovered these oh-so-secret letters of Todd’s).

Even the start of the second paragraph was a hurdle to jump over: someone approaching a nude Todd in the showers. Neil was confronted with the image so suddenly that he threw his hands up to his face, digging his palms into his eye sockets as if it would rid the thought. Perhaps he would be comforted slightly if he put himself in Todd’s shoes instead, greeted only with the sight of water and a faceless but luring figure.

What had Todd described? Hands? Hands where? What would it feel like, for warm hands to weave around one’s body, tracing one’s skin with their fingertips? Just to aid in his visualization, Neil let one of his own hands creep around his waist, worming its way under his shirt and only dusting his fingertips over the exposed flesh, heightening the sensation. It felt… interesting, to say in the least. Interesting enough that Neil was entertained for a while, brushing his fingers against the warm skin just underneath his shirt.

And then what? Something about kissing? Closing his eyes and digging his head into his pillow, Neil tried to imagine lips on his neck, trailing down to his chest. He could… somewhat feel it. _What would it even feel like?_ Neil looked down, as if the faceless figure would give him an answer. Frowning, he gave up on forcing something that wasn’t coming.

_What if… what if he switched it up a bit?_

As soon as Neil stopped trying to force a picture, he was immediately faced with bare skin, instinctually moving closer and taking matters into his own hands. Leaning forward, Neil imagined that he would start right between the neck and shoulder, pressing his lips against the area lightly but drawing out the contact. Neil drew his other hand to his mouth, touching his fingers against his lips.

_What else would he try?_ Maybe move across the boy’s chest, very slowly beginning to pull skin between his teeth. As he reached the neck, maybe he’d be a bit more bold, licking and suckling wherever he saw fit. Perhaps these kisses would encourage a noise from the recipient, sweet and submissive under Neil’s touch.

_How would Todd sound? Would his breath already be laboured, raggedy under where Neil clung on? Would it escape in breathy little gasps, desperate for more? And how about his voice? Would it be a low hum, or would it be a higher-pitched whine?_

As Neil waned in and out of his surroundings, he came to realize the pulse that had dropped to his inner thighs, encouraging him to set his picture into motion. It had admittedly been a while since he’d had the opportunity to release himself, but he was remembering with growing guilt that now was less than the perfect time.

Neil was subjecting himself… to a _fantasy…_ about his _friend…_ who was _just on the other side of the room as him._

And he was _reacting_.

There were so many issues that were objectively wrong with his situation, but all his hazy mind would offer him was the pale skin underneath his lips, a hand tugging at his hair, and various renditions of Todd’s voice.

_Todd’s voice…_

“Neil?”

_Fuck — Todd really was in the same room as him, wasn’t he._ Neil rolled over so that he was laying on his stomach, twisting his torso so that he could also try and see Todd.

“Yeah?” _Did he sound normal? Oh god, so that’s what Todd’s voice sounded like, huh._

Todd’s back was still turned away from him (thank god), but he was tapping his pen against his desk. “What rhymes with silk?”

“Uhm…” Neil really couldn’t think right now. Especially due to the fact that lying stomach-down really gave him friction against the mattress. He squeezed his eyes shut to try and concentrate. _Was this guilt really going to excite him or could he just forget about it all in the first place?_ “Milk?”

“Mm…” Todd thought for a few moments. “Might not work. Any others?”

_I really can’t think about anything right now,_ Neil wanted to say, but luckily didn’t voice his concerns. “Todd, I really don’t think anything else rhymes with silk.”

“Hm, yeah. I guess I’ll just have to make do.”

_Please stop talking, please stop talking, please stop talking...._

“Are you writing poetry again?”

_God fucking dammit._

Neil was an idiot who possessed the loudest mouth he knew of (other than maybe Charlie). As much as he wanted to concentrate on _not_ embarrassing himself and living with the almost unbearable shame of having to face his roommate almost every second of the goddamn day, perhaps it would be easier to take his mind out of the gutter this way. That, or he was really starting to get addicted to Todd’s voice.

“Not really,” Todd answered lightly.

“Then why are you rhyming? A poet and you don’t even know it?”

He scoffed. “I’m working on something else.”

“And this something else is…?”

“Something I discussed with Keating. Now lay off it, Neil.”

“No.”

“ _Neil-_ ”

“Todd?”

Todd sighed and turned around to acknowledge Neil. “Before you ask: no, you cannot read it.”

“Aw, don’t be such a spoil sport-”

“No, Neil.”

“Just tell me what it _is_.”

“ _Neil-_ ”

“Is it about _love_?”

Todd hesitated, his eyes flickering to the corner of the room. “N- No-”

“ _Oh my god_ , it is, isn’t it?” Neil had been having too much fun distracting the boy, but was it really another letter? _Was Todd daring to be almost as bold as he was? Had this coping mechanism all been the brainchild of Keating?_

“It’s not, alright?”

“Do tell me who it is-”

“Aren’t you the loverboy, you hypocrite?”

“What?”

“Two meetings ago, you were the one-”

“Nuh uh; I’m not the one writing my own prose instead of studying, like some romantic.”

Todd rolled his eyes. “And I don’t dramatically recite verse at every given moment, _like some romantic._ You can’t read it, Neil.” He turned back to his desk.

And Neil really couldn’t.

Not unless he was in the mood for exposing and explaining himself to the other.

 

* * *

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

_Have you met the lovely spider?_  
_I think she and you are the same._  
 _Her image is stigmatized with terror_  
 _Yet so delicate and tame._  
 _I am but an innocent fly,_  
 _So meek and so shy,_  
 _And into your trap I lie,_  
 _As soon as you called my name._

 

_Have you felt a sense of longing?_  
_In it I feel no rest._  
 _I am cocooned in a spider’s silk_  
 _Hovering above her nest._  
 _I fear I have been mislead,_  
 _Caught only to be cruelly bled,_  
 _Suspended by one silvery thread,_  
 _Yet left with the binding of my chest._

 

_Yours truly_

 

* * *

 

Everyone at Welton had a day off that Friday (except for the staff, who were busy with a few meetings), so Todd, Knox, Meeks, and Pitts were all permitted to go into town for a night. Neil had been instructed to use the extra time to study by his father, and Neil only roped Charlie into staying by begging and with the proposal of getting drunk that night.

Neil’s door clicked shut, and the boy scrambled in his bed to sit up straight. Right in the middle of his room stood Charlie, slightly irritated but grinning nonetheless.

“God, Cameron’s such a pain in the _ass_ to circumvent, but I managed to get away by saying I was studying with you.”

Neil laughed. “No sleepover this time?” He crawled away from Charlie’s lunge, shrieking. “Alright, alright… what are we studying?”

There was a twinkle in Charlie’s eye. “The art... ” he winked, “Of getting piss drunk.”

“I can’t wait. So what did you bring?”

Charlie tossed the bottle in his hands to Neil. “The finest.” Neil miraculously caught it, immediately reading the label.

“Brandy? _Charlie-_ ”

“Hey, don’t complain. I still managed to get one with 50%, and it tastes a hell of a lot better than whiskey. And at least it’s a full bottle this time.”

Neil rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I guess it’s better than nothing.”

He unscrewed the lid and took a swig. It didn’t burn as harshly as any hard liquors would, but the foreign warmth that spread through his chest like a flood was more than worth it. Charlie locked the door before joining Neil on his bed. Neil scootched over to allow his friend some room, wordlessly passing the alcohol.

“Do you think Cameron will snitch?”

Charlie scoffed. “Not if I stay here. He’ll have nothing to snitch about.”

“Cool, just checkin’. So what’s been happening?”

“Nothing much, really. We see each other every day.”

“What about those girls you were meeting with? Nancy and… Brenda? Wouldn’t they be in town?”

Charlie shrugged. “Probably. With their boyfriends, or something.”

“Aw, tough luck, Nuwanda.”

“It always ends up like this, huh.” Charlie took another swig of the brandy before passing it back to Neil, sighing loudly as he stretched back and rested against the wall.

“You get more luck than anyone else.”

“Not if you include Knox.”

“Yeah. Because he’s been _so successful_ with Chris so far.”

“Hey-” Charlie half-assedly shoved Neil, “Don’t be mean!” Neil laughed.

“Oh and, speaking of the Society, wasn’t there supposed a meeting tonight?”

“Not anymore,” Charlie said, gesturing to the lack of Dead Poets around them. “We could have our own lil meeting, if you’re so chapfallen about it. You’re welcome to wax poetic about infatuation as soon as I’m tipsy enough.”

“Huh?” Neil let the bottle of brandy be tugged from his grasp. “Since when have I been waxing poetic about infatuation?”

Charlie wiped his mouth. “Since the last two meetings.”

Neil stole the brandy back. “Yeah right.” He downed a slow gulp of the alcohol, relishing in the warmth it brought. _Now, Neil wondered what it would feel like to couple that warmth with whatever he felt as he thought about Todd’s fourth letter._

The two boys basked in silence for a few minutes. As the alcohol was beginning to enter his system, Neil was beginning to feel looser than usual, happily daring to delve into thinking about Todd’s letters again despite Charlie sitting right next to him; he was trying his best to extract as much happiness from himself as possible and bathe in the feeling for a little while.

“So do you ever think about love?” Charlie murmured. When Neil turned to him, he noticed that his friend was staring up at the ceiling lazily.

“Oh, come off it. I’m not saying anything.”

Charlie smirked. “But you’ll admit that there is something there?”

Neil took another swig of the brandy.

Charlie sighed. “Listen, I’ve been your best friend for… how many years? Being one hundred percent, fully, genuinely, hundred percently honest, you can talk to me about anything. _Anything_.”

“Hm.”

“That and also you may be legally obliged to tell me because I’m dying over here.”

“Then perish.”

Charlie frowned. “You’re so mean to me, Perry.”

“Jesus Christ, Charlie, I’m not saying anything.”

“If you want to confess your dying love to me, then just know that I am ready.”

“Ready for what? Jesus — _get away from me, Charlie!_ ” Neil laughed suddenly, squirming away from his friend, who was leaning towards him making kissy noises.

“It was worth a shot.”

Charlie tried to steal the brandy again, but not before Neil could take another sip. As Charlie played with the bottle, Neil rolled his head against the wall, taking to staring out the window dramatically.

“It’s just too serious,” Neil finally mumbled. His heart was fluttering against his chest, desperate to have some means of escape, but there was also a terrifying sense of rejection that Neil was fighting against.

“Hm.”

“I can’t tell anyone.”

“Okay.”

Surprised, Neil turned back to Charlie. He shrugged in response.

“Why did you say I was in love? During that one meeting, I mean.”

“Mmm…” Charlie stared at him, prying into his soul. “We always choose poems for the meetings based on our innermost contemplations, whether we want to or not. All of us. It especially takes a certain kind of courage, I think, to write something and then share it. That’s why I think Todd doesn’t read anything. You know him better than anyone, and yet sometimes I feel like he is still a complete stranger.”

“... And so?”

“Oh, the poem, right?”

“Yeah. Why did you say-”

“The poem was about a naive chase for a lover.”

“Oh.”

“So you weren’t just being really dense about it.”

Neil laughed. “No, yeah, I was being really dense about it. It’s just that’s basically what Keating said.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

Neil looked at him as if he was crazy. “ _Nothing_ , obviously.”

“And why not?”

“Because I can’t.”

“And why’s that?”

“I just can’t.”

“Do you not see her enough?”

“Charlie-”

“Or do you see them too often?”

Charlie finally hit his point right on the nail, and as much as Neil wanted to retort, he was rendered absolutely speechless. He sat there staring at Todd’s side of the room absently, finally reaching over to grab the bottle of brandy to distract himself with _something_.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Neil finally let out in a breath, bringing the bottle from his lips. He avoided Charlie’s gaze.

“I knew it.”

“Charlie-”

“I had my suspicions, but-”

“ _Charlie_.” Charlie shut up, so Neil continued. “If anyone finds out, I’m dead.” Charlie nodded. “And quite literally. You know if word ever gets to my father, the consequences would be worse than if he found out I’m in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, right?”

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” he said quietly.

“You’re not?”

“It wouldn’t be fair,” Charlie added before reaching for the brandy. Neil raised an eyebrow.

“Fair to what?”

“Fair to me.”

Charlie probably had no idea what he was saying at this point, so Neil let him off the hook. Instead, Neil took to threading his fingers, twiddling his thumbs as he felt his heart lazily thump in his chest and warmth spread where it pleased. Being even merely around this topic in the conversation with the alcohol made his blood flow south, so Neil basked in his lethargic mood, content with the coolness of a light evening breeze that was escaping through his window.

“So how did you know?” Neil asked after a while.

“No one just _randomly_ seeks out Oscar Wilde’s _poetry_ of all things — you’d have to go looking for it.”

Neil giggled. “I guess you’re right. So you know who it is?”

“Don’t pretend that I don’t have to suffer through catching you making weird looks at him; of course I know who.”

“Oh god, am I really that obvious?”

“In your own way. Then again, I’m an expert in Neil Perry. I should have a doctorate at this point.”

“Why me?”

“Why not?”

“So you weren’t kidding around earlier?”

Charlie frowned, pondering an answer for way too long. “At one point I wouldn’t have been.”

“Oh god.” Neil started laughing suddenly, loud and uncontrollably. “Hey, no offence, but why _me?_ ”

“I don’t know, why don’t you ask Todd that question?”

Neil felt himself instantly burn up, shoving his friend and almost sloshing brandy all over his bed. “What the hell? I know for a _fact_ that he’s not interested in me.”

“There would have to be some pretty compelling evidence.”

“I have hard evidence.”

“Please don’t show me any dicks. Well, as long as they’re not for me.”

“You’re going to hell.”

“And so are you. Buckle up, buttercup.”

“God, you’re insufferable.”

Charlie winked. “You love it. But seriously, where’s this hard evidence?”

“I can’t show you.”

“Why not?”

“Reasons.”

“Uh huh.”

“Personal reasons. Infringement on Todd’s privacy.”

“So you’ve already infringed on Todd’s privacy?”

“Don’t phrase it that way.”

“Oh, _Neil_ , you little minx.”

“Anyways, we’re avoiding the important question.”

“There’s an important question?”

“I thought you liked girls.”

“I do.”

“Then why…?”

“Why miss out on half the fun?” Charlie lifted the now considerably-more-empty bottle of brandy as if he were toasting.

“So you’ve already gone through all…” Neil gestured aimlessly around them, “ _This_? Before?”

“Yeah. A while back.”

“With who?”

“Because I’m drunk and honest tonight, I’m pretty sure it was you.”

“Oh. Er, anyone else?”

“I think the most recent on that side of the spectrum was Knox.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry man.”

“Yeah, it’s no biggie. I just wanna see him happy.”

“God, this all kinda makes sense now. I hope I don’t forget everything tomorrow.”

“Mm.”

“So is there anyone new yet for you? Guy or girl, I guess.”

“Hmm, maybe.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not saying.”

“Dude? Come on.”

“Hey — I had to guess yours.”

“Fine, whatever. Do you think you have a chance?”

“When have I ever had a chance? Anyways, now that the cat’s out of the bag, are you going to start waxing poetic to me about Anderson or am I safe for the night?”

“Not before I let all my drunken thoughts off my chest.”

“Oh Christ, here we go.”

“I think I might still be in denial though.”

“I’ll kill you for real, Perry.”

 

* * *

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

_I do not think I had truly realized the extent to which I am emotionally bound to you until we parted. I did not expect to suffer so, being gone for so little time, but my chest aches as your cunning eyes and bright smile envelop my every waking thought. I tell myself to enjoy my time away, to unshackle myself from a separate individual, but I do not know whether to pride or shame myself from my failure. You have become my anchor and my muse, and I am dependant on your presence to feel pure joy. I realize this mindset is only a burden on myself, but I cannot help but anticipate the sound of your voice and our every merry interaction._

_Ah, forgive me for lamenting so, but I had not realized how much I missed you since the moment I had left. This is admittedly a somewhat masochistic pain where I am selfish in my hurting but would have it no other way — and yet you are so unsuspecting, having only watched upon the mask I must use to conceal my hidden intentions. I am happy simply basking in your presence._

_I have just been informed that it will not be long until I may return to your side at last. Isn’t it queer how the air suddenly changes? It becomes harder to breathe and it feels like my chest wants to cave in, but I shall not reveal myself so easily. Soon I will be with you again, forgetting this fickle silliness of whatever business has been happening inside of my head._

_O, how I want to skip around and jump for joy, but I do believe trying to do so in a moving automobile is asking for a death wish. Thus, I will merely bask in my feelings for the rest of the trip. The trees and fields pass by so quickly through the glass, but I do not believe it will keep my mind distracted for long._

_Funny how much of a hopeless romantic I’ve become — are you the one to blame? Or is it I?_

 

_Yours truly_

 

* * *

 

“Knox!”

Neil had spotted the boy maybe a few meters away in the hall, but there was a steady flow of students between them, so Neil was fighting against a moving current. Still, he fought his way through, wiggling between two backs into some open space. He vaguely heard some professor in his wake, shouting something about running in the halls.

“ _Goddammit, Overstreet!_ ”

Knox finally turned around, somewhat startled to have been called out but idle at last nonetheless. Grinning, Neil caught up to him, slowing his pace so they could walk back to their dorms together before lunchtime.

“So how was your night in town, then?” Neil asked lightly, easing his friend into conversation. Knox only seemed baffled.

“Is that what this is all about?”

“Oh, c’mon: don’t think I don’t know you were trying to get into Chris’-”

“ _Neil!_ ” Knox yelped, hand flying forward to muffle Neil’s mouth. Neil cackled, delighted that his teasing had gotten under Knox’s skin. “Gosh, you know I’m not like that.”

“But did you _see_ her?”

Knox hummed, grinning lazily. “Yeah. Only for a little while, and she was with Chet, but it was still like a dream.”

“God, you make me _sick_.”

“You’re the actor out of all of us — don’t pretend you’re not also dramatic.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Ah huh. And what’s your actual question? As much as you like teasing me, I know you have ulterior motives.” Knox held open the door, letting them both into the courtyard they had to cross to reach the next building.

“It’s a very important question.”

“Mm.”

“Remember to answer honestly.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“... So who else did you hang out with?”

Knox rolled his eyes. “And just _why_ are you so concerned about this information?”

“I’m curious,” Neil defended himself in a rush, scrabbling for excuses, “To- To see if you had any fun while Charlie and I were forced back.”

“Weren’t _you_ the one that forced Charlie back?”

“ _So?_ ”

Knox shrugged. “I dunno. Meeks and Pitts went and did their own thing (radio related, I think), so Todd and I ended up walking around town. We met up with Ginny and some of her friends, but I don’t remember all of their names.”

“Ginny Danbury?”

“That’s the one. Oh, and we ended up going to a party in town (which Chris, unfortunately, couldn’t make), but I can’t remember exactly everyone there.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Sorry man, I can’t give you any connections.”

“Who did Todd hang out with?”

Knox scrunched up his nose as he thought. “Um… I’m not too sure? Has he not already told you about going into town?”

“No. You all came in pretty late and he ended up falling asleep the second he came into our room.”

“Yeah. That party was pretty exhausting — for him, at least. I think it easily filled his social interaction quota up for the month.”

“I can imagine.”

“But why don’t you just ask him?”

“Ask him?”

Knox looked bewildered, because Neil was being the idiot here. “Um, yeah? Your roommate? Your friend? Your fellow Dead Poet?”

“Oh.” They finally began climbing the stairs up to their dorm rooms. “I suppose that’s always an option.”

“It’s just Todd, Neil.” Knox nudged his shoulder, urging a chuckle out of him.

“Yeah,” Neil agreed absently. “ _Just Todd._ ”

 

* * *

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

_Oftentimes I wonder what goes on in that curious head of yours. Not that I mean to be intrusive in any way, but occasionally I like to entertain myself with these presumptions. I do not think of myself as a very good reader of people; observant (or not) as I may be, I have a great fear of misinterpretation. Then again, I do not know which could possibly be worse: for me to be right, or for me to be wrong. Still, while my mind idles and wanders over to you, I imagine —if just for a moment— what the world looks like from your eyes._

_Is there a symphony playing? Is there an unbridled energy, tapping at your skull, begging to be let out? Is there a buzz, a whisper, or a hum? Do you see the world with rose-coloured glasses, always a half-glass full? Is there a library, full of memories and fantastical worlds, a scattered but beautiful labyrinth? Is there a wish, a spell to your happiest life? Or is there nothing at all?_

 

_Yours truly_

 

* * *

 

Lights had already been out for maybe about ten minutes or so, but there was still the occasional thud that crashed somewhere on the dorm floor — not unusual for a wing full of restless boys. This time, with a particularly loud sound right against Neil’s wall, the voice of their floor monitor followed the echo of the clamor.

Neil was restless in his bed as he was in mind, constantly shifting as his body itched to move from the latest position he had chosen. He only laid still when he psyched himself up to voice his thoughts, but then he’d decide to wait a little longer, consequently rolling over under his sheets. Squeezing his eyes shut, he played with the fabric of his blanket, finally managing a mere murmur.

“Todd?”

The room remained silent. Neil paused, trying to listen past the creaking of pipes and tapping of wind against their window, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Frowning slightly, Neil rolled over under his sheets, trying to see whether the other was actually asleep or not. All he could see in the moonlight-struck room was a mound of blankets and the slope of a shoulder, softly rising and falling with every even breath.

_“Todd?”_

Finally, _finally_ , there was a slight grumble of acknowledgment. Neil hesitated, waiting for the other to say anything else. When he didn’t, Neil whispered again.

“... Todd?”

“ _God_ , Neil — what is it?”

“... What are you thinking about?”

“Falling asleep. Which I’m planning on doing any second now, for that matter.”

Neil mentally shook himself. “But before you do that… how was it?”

Todd paused for a while, bringing a small lull in their conversation. Shifting around in his spot, Todd craned his neck so that he could peer blearily at Neil over his shoulder. “How was _what_?”

Neil beamed. “Going into town.” Todd groaned, and Neil knew he at least caught some of his attention.

“Haven’t you already asked someone else? Pitts? Meeks?”

“Something about radio. Not whatever you did.”

“Knox? He was with me.”

“He wasn’t being helpful.”

“... Tonight’s a school night.”

“And when has that ever mattered?”

Across the room, there was a small sigh. At last, Todd rolled over so that he could face Neil, his sleepy face half-buried under his covers.

“What was your Friday like, then?” he whispered, having completely succumbed to Neil’s persuasion. Neil couldn’t help but grin.

“Quiet,” Neil pondered. “Usual studying.”

“And you dragged Dalton back here?”

“We got drunk.”

“Oh?”

“... Tipsy."

“Mm.”

“It was just a bottle of brandy.”

“Classy. Anything else exciting?”

“Nah. We just talked through a few things, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

“And?”

“... And…?”

Neil shifted to prop himself up a little, hugging his pillow. “How was town? Who did you meet up with? Anyone special?”

“Mm…” Todd’s eyes flickered elsewhere as he thought, seriously trying to remember the events of the weekend. “Well, Ginny Danbury invited us to a party that night, which was pretty fun.”

“Ginny?”

“Yeah… she said she was your costar.”

“Oh… so you did meet her then.”

“Mm. I don’t think I did anything too stupid that night (I only had a few drinks here and there) but Knox almost got his lights knocked out by Chet again.”

“... Are you serious?” Neil’s quiet voice was whimsical, elated at the vivid picture Todd was starting to paint. He ignored (for the time being) the tiny ache that persisted in his chest, urging him to pry elsewhere.

Todd laughed into his blankets. “Yeah… I said this and that and I almost pulled him down the stairs to make him avoid Chet’s knuckles but I think we all turned out okay.”

“No bruises?”

“No bruises.”

“And that’s all _you_ did? Stick up for Knox?”

“I ended up talking to Ginny quite a bit,” Todd pondered, chewing his words out slowly. “See, we had met earlier by accident and Knox recognized their whole group (Ginny and Chris and all their friends), so we all got a soda and hung around the shops until the party.”

“So just you, Knox, and a bunch of girls?”

Todd shrugged. “I mean… yeah, but it was no big deal. Knox fawned over Chris the whole while but everyone else was good company (maybe with the exception of Chet, who did swing by after an hour or so).”

Neil raised his eyebrows. “... No big deal…”

“What… were you expecting something out of that?” And then, after some hesitation: “... Did… did you want me to… to… I don’t know, set you up with someone?”

“Hm? Oh, no, no, it’s just… well…most guys… uh… But you weren’t feeling lonely? Abandoned by Knox?”

Todd scoffed. “I wasn’t completely abandoned. Plus, I ended up talking quite a bit with Ginny. She’s a lovely person, I can’t imagine what she’s like on stage.” Neil worried his lip. _That couldn’t be it… could it?_

“Absolutely stellar. But what did you two talk about? I can’t imagine you’d have that much in common.”

“Well, we have _you_.” Todd’s words seemed to have fallen from his lips before he could properly monitor them, considering by the way he stiffened in his bed.

“Me?” Neil narrowed his eyes. “Why would you talk about _me?_ ”

“Oh, well, we mostly talked about our day-to-day lives, y’know?” Todd substituted airily. “School and older brothers and the sorts… oh, and did you know she’s also a fan of classic poetry?”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.”

“Never asked.”

“Really?”

“The play takes up a lot of time.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Both were silent for a moment. Neil’s heart fluttered.

“Do you fancy her?” Neil blurted out.

“N-No! Not at all!” Todd half-interrupted him, flustered at the mere suggestion.

“... Are you sure?”

“Quite.”

“... She’s a real beauty.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” he agreed.

“And you don’t fancy her? Not even a bit?”

Todd hummed, pondering for a moment, his eyes twinkling like distant stars in the moonlight. “Let’s just say she’s not exactly my type.”

“Mm? Then what is your type?”

No one spoke for a while. Neil wasn’t sure if Todd was trying to formulate words or just thinking of how to deflect the conversation.

“What exactly do you mean by type?” he asked carefully, expression guarded.

“I- er- Perhaps something like… the shy type? Real hotties?” Neil floundered, barely processing what he was saying. Todd raised an eyebrow.

“Uh… they have a really nice smile?”

“That’s so sappy, Jesus Christ. Almost sounds like Knox. I’m- uh… Are you a tits or ass man?”

Todd stared at him for a really long time.

“Ass,” he finally said, slowly. “Then what about you?”

Neil thought about it for a while. Maybe for too long.

“Ditto. Tits are overrated.”

Todd laughed out loud. Neil grinned.

“So…” Neil drawled, “Nice ass and a nice smile. Where can you find that here anymore?”

Todd rolled his eyes. “I think it’s near impossible.” _Bullshit. What were all those letters about, then?_

“Mm? So you don’t have anyone in mind?”

The other boy paused, his face growing especially illegible in the dark. There were creaks in the hallway of someone getting up to go take a piss.

“I might,” he finally answered, voice mysterious.

“Oh-?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Can’t you at least give me a clue?”

All of a sudden, Todd laughed breathily, each punctuating the air quickly. “I’m just pulling your leg, Neil. We don’t see anyone often enough for something like that."

“No love at first sight?” Neil tried to pry, frustrated that he was suddenly thrust away from discovering who the recipient of the love letters was to be.

“Only for Knox, I’m afraid.”

“You-”

“But what about you?”

Neil’s voice died in his throat, and he was left there, oddly vulnerable in his bed, acutely monitoring the position of every muscle and whether any movement would give him away. Did he stiffen too much? Was he staying silent for too long? Did he look dizzy with how fast his mind was whirring? _How the hell was he supposed to throw Todd off his trail?_

“No love at first sight for me, thank you very much,” he strained a smile, hoping it would compensate for his silence. Todd (unfortunately) seemed to grow curious.

“You don’t have anyone you fancy?”

Neil was an actor, for Christ’s sake — he could squeeze his way out of this somehow. _Perhaps he didn’t have to lie completely…?_

“Well, if you’re going to be such a bother about it…” he began, letting a smirk creep up his cheeks, narrowing his eyes mischievously, “I did have my eye on someone at some point.”

“ _Who?”_

“But they are way out of my league, so I’m trying to drop it all from my head.”

Todd paused, pondering a response for a moment. “I find that quite hard to believe,” he finally commented quietly.

“That I’m really trying to get over them-?”

“That they’re out of your league.”

Neil blinked. “What? Todd, that’s-”

He shrugged. “If anything, you’re probably out of _their_ league.”

“What?” Neil scoffed, finding Todd’s entire proposition laughable. “You don’t even know who they _are_.”

“Do I have to?”

_Fuck_ , Neil had not been prepared for an answer like that. It took him a few seconds to process its exact connotation, but as soon as it was there, it rang like a million alarms around his head. Worried that the blush of a heat flooding his face would show in the moonlight, Neil turned on his back, pulling his covers up to his chin.

By the time he thought his skin was cooled enough from their leaky window, he shifted his head to the side slightly, only to see that Todd had turned over with his shoulder facing back at Neil.

At least Neil somewhat accomplished the mission he had set out to achieve. Though he discovered what had happened over the weekend, Neil still didn’t really get any closer to finding out who the target of Todd’s affections was. He could, of course, eliminate the candidates of anyone Todd had hung out with that weekend, but he had lied so easily in saying his heart was not distracted, hiding the passion he so expressed in the privacy of his letters, so it was entirely possible Neil was back to square one. Sighing, Neil huddled into his blankets.

“You’d tell me if you were keeping a secret, right?”

“Go to sleep, we have school tomorrow,” Todd murmured from across the room.

“Would you?”

It was quiet for so long that Neil almost suspected that Todd had ignored him altogether. He couldn’t see the other boy because of the way he was facing, so he couldn’t pick up on smaller cues. What sounded like a mouse scurried between floorboards perhaps about a room away. Neil was shutting his eyes, having given up, when Todd gave his response, almost too soft to hear.

“... The best I could.”

“Is…?”

“Goodnight, Neil.”

This time, Neil complied, letting his stubbornness rest for the night. After all, their discussion was more than enough to mull over for the next few hours.

When Neil sleepily mumbled the other’s name after about ten minutes, there was no response.

 

* * *

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

_I find it terribly hypocritical that I must envy those who hold the potential to be a candidate to your affection while I vowed to never interfere myself, knowing that a future between us that I always dream of would never pass by fate. I am destined to be tormented by such an unholy curse, where your happiness must suffocate me to please me. If there is still any god that would listen to me, I’d beg of them for my forgiveness of this twisted, twisted jealousy._

_Though, it is your free will that I am a slave to, which makes me fear if I have grown affections for the image I have conjured rather than who you are. My heart still flutters in my chest at your voice, and your wandering eyes still send shivers down my spine, but I still wonder if I have grown more attached to who I want you to be. Do I love the one who will pause mid-speech, knowing that I am listening? Do I love the one that holds admiration in places I do not have the courage to? Or do I love the one that holds my hands and kisses me softly in the moonlight, the one that embraces me as I drift asleep?_

_Is it for the better that I fall for your image?_

_At least, with your image, we never have to be apart. Even now, over my shoulder, I feel you, smiling softly and watching over me kindly like my guardian angel. All I must do is close my eyes, and you are there, eyes twinkling and your lips moving, beckoning me closer. Now, sleep has become more than just a rest for me, where I am later left craving more of your imaginary taste and sweet words._

_Come, my darling. I shall discern not whether tis you or your visage that joins me tonight, for deep in our slumbers, we meet in our dreams. With every last shred of blessing that remains in my wretched soul, I hope that I may join you in your merry slumber, solely an image I vicariously thrive within._

 

_Yours truly_

 

* * *

 

“ _For in that sleep of death what dreams may come/ When we have shuffled off this mortal coil… that… that…_ ” Neil scrunched up his face, throwing even more shadows across his cheeks. As more seconds passed that he was paused, he began to lightly bang the top of his head against the tree he was sitting against.

“ _Must give us pause_ ,” Todd finally offered, leaning forward from where he sat across and slapped the book against Neil’s forehead, mussing up his bangs. Neil immediately brightened, absently waving the play away.

“Yes! Of course! _When we have shuffled off this mortal coil/ Must give us pause. There’s the respect/ That makes calamity of so long life./ For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,/ Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely/ The pangs of despised love, the- the…_ the…?”

Neil’s voice trailed off as his memory failed him, his surroundings gradually coming back into concentration. His eyes flickered down to the boy in front of him, who seemed preoccupied with staring back at him with a slightly dazed look across his face.

“The…?” Neil supplied again, hoping for the other to catch the gist.

Finally, Todd blinked suddenly, jerking back to the book in his hands. “Uh… _the_? The, the, the…”

Neil sighed. “Were you even listening at all?”

“Of- Of course I was. The… _the proud man’s contumely?_ ” Todd glanced back up at him questioningly.

“Nice try.”

Todd groaned, shutting the book (but keeping a finger on the page) and setting it on his lap. “Why are you even doing this? You’re Puck, not Hamlet.”

“Don’t you understand?” Neil exclaimed, his bright energy bristling up within him as he spoke. “As an actor, I am compelled to commit the greatest masterpieces of monologues to memory, just as any virtuoso would a solo proficiently on their instrument.”

Breathing deeply from slight overexertion, Neil stared back at Todd, who was carefully examining his eyes. It felt… personal. As if Todd was trying to read Neil’s very soul, contentedly lazing around his mind… and Neil was completely okay with it all. Because of the odd comfort he gained from their eye contact, they both ended up staring at each other for longer than any two people usually would.

Todd inhaled a shaky breath, waving the book between them to distract their eyes. “Start from the beginning then, virtuoso.” Beaming, (and ignoring the fact that Todd had managed to circumvent the fact that he had lost wherever Neil had left off,) Neil began.

_“To be or not to be — that is the question:...”_

 

* * *

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

_Against skin as pale as moonlight and as soft as a peach, a galaxy of dark constellations dots your features. It is a rare treat to stargaze —rarer than that of the absence of a cloudy night or a busy evening— where I have the freedom to map every angel’s kiss that has remained. In my wildest dreams, I’d mirror your lucky angel: kisses dot your cheekbones and down your neck, across your shoulders and back, and perhaps even in places I would have thought been too sinful for seraphim to bless. O, how thrilling it is to explore uncharted territory, memorizing patterns astronomers could only aspire to discover._

_I watch the sky and two eyes blink back at me, and, caught up in the euphoria I have found while stargazing, I am enticed to pry further, to encounter the origins of this brand-new and bright twinkling blinking back at me._

_Yours truly_

 

* * *

 

“If you two don’t stop playing footsie, I’ll kick your asses into tomorrow.”

Neil, pausing in kicking at Todd’s shins (which had started when one had accidentally shifted their foot against the other, consequently leading into harder and harder nudges and jabs until they were practically moving the entire table in their game), turned to glare at Charlie beside him, who was actually trying to study for once.

“No one’s kicked you yet,” Neil whispered wildly.

“Sorry, sorry… I’ll just let you play with your-”

Charlie was interrupted with what was basically a punch to the ribs, and all of his breath left his lungs rather quickly. Despite being winded, he still managed to look malicious in intent, and Neil’s panicked mind had successfully latched to Charlie’s threat. Todd, who was on the other side of the study table from the two, looked like he was about to say something before Neil retorted, having missed his attempt.

“Are you just upset that —so near yet so, _so_ far— your cr-”

Neil was also interrupted with a punch to the stomach, and within seconds the two were tugging at arms and hair, wrestling as best as they could during the quiet study period. It wasn’t too long after that their supervisor barked out a warning at them, Cameron following close behind with a _“just shut up and study, will you.”_

Smugly ignoring Charlie (despite being sat directly next to him), Neil turned to his own work, which had ended up being neglected for a good portion of the study period thus far. His wandering brain briefly latched onto Meeks correcting Pitts’ Latin grammar, but then, with his Chemistry book finally flipped open, he did his best to zone everything else out.

Which, unsurprisingly, didn’t work too well.

After having read the same paragraph about electrolysis for about a minute or two without processing any of the words, Neil pushed his textbook away and sighed, careful to rub his eyes underneath his reading glasses. In his tiny (somewhat undeserving) break, Neil paused, having noticed that he was being observed.

Todd had nestled his chin in his forearms, which were laying on the wooden table. He was staring back at Neil, his eyes far from the abandoned textbook at his side. The confidence his relaxed posture was exuding was wholly different than basically anything else Todd had displayed before. Intrigued, Neil stared back, equally as intensely.

About thirty seconds later, Todd suddenly pointed at his eyes, so Neil cocked his head, confused. Smirking, Todd mouthed something. _I win_. Neil narrowed his eyes.

Then it clicked.

Neil’s jaw dropped in disbelief, ready to retort before remembering that he already had been warned to stay quiet. Snapping his mouth shut, he glared playfully at Todd, mouthing for _again_. Todd teasingly glanced away, pretending to consider whether he actually wanted to or not. When he did settle back down, blinking his eyes to refresh himself, Neil shifted so that his chin rested in the palms of his hands, his elbows propped up on the table. With a last few blinks, Neil stared down at the other, his competitive nature compelling him to win.

Throughout the rest of the week (and then continuing for quite a while longer), staring contests became the favorite silent game between the two boys, entertaining them through dragging lectures and slow study periods, confusing the likes of professors and friends around them.

 

* * *

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

_How often is it that you ponder the future? Next year, next month, next week, tomorrow, or even the next minute — each is only theoretical, yet we have come to accept that they will arrive in due time. We can only predict where we will end up, where are lives will be led, and where we wish to be._

_I believe this sentimentality has been derived primarily from the root of your good influence. That is not to say, of course, that I despise your advice —it is quite to the contrary, in fact— but falling back to a blank slate is far more terrifying than anything I have encountered before._

_As agitating as it may be, being able to see all of one’s life comes with great comfort. The path that had been unwittingly chosen for me did not suit my liking, but at the very least, I was able to know what I was to do and where I was to progress from where I stood; I was very much like a child, clinging to my parents’ hands. But now? Now, you have allowed me to cling to my own idea, which has flown out of the nest and forcibly flung me in its wake. The only comfort I feel with writing is with what I can currently grasp, praying that it will be kind to me and safely bring me somewhere wondrous._

_Imagine, just for a moment, that you are suddenly blindfolded and thrust into an unfamiliar room, forced to continue forward on a tightrope. There is not even light around you to seep through the fabric of your blindfold. Each step is constant agony, where your entire core trembles pathetically like a leaf. There is nothing to grab ahold of and your sanity diminishes until you fear you will be left with nothing but a shell. There is no way to tell when that rope will end, or if it ever will. Will you continue? Or are you destined to slip and fall, never to know what hell or paradise awaits you?_

 

_Yours truly_

 

* * *

 

“July eighth, eighteen-nineteen:

_“My sweet Girl—Your Letter gave me more delight than any thing in the world but yourself could do; indeed I am almost astonished that any absent one should have that luxurious power over my senses which I feel. Even when I am not thinking of you I receive your influence and a tenderer nature stealing upon me… ”_ ”

Keating stood between the students, leaning against Cameron’s desk. He held a small book in his hands, dutifully reading its texts. The boys farthest away had left their desks, creeping closer to their professor. Neil stared up at him, enraptured by the sparkle in Keating’s eye that shined brightly as he read.

_“... I never knew before, what such a love as you have made me feel, was; I did not believe in it; my Fancy was afraid of it, lest it should burn me up. But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, ‘twill not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures.”_

Many of the boys snickered, and Keating let them, pausing in his reading to grin all the same. He did not say anything to interrupt his own reading, however, so he simply waited out the next few seconds before continuing.

_“You mention ‘horrid people’ and ask me whether it depend upon them whether I see you again. Do understand me, my love, in this. I have so much of you in my heart that I must turn Mentor when I see a chance of harm befalling you. I would never see any thing but Pleasure in your eyes, love on your lips, and Happiness in your steps… “_

Just over the book in Keating’s hands, Neil caught Todd’s eye, inconspicuous enough that it seemed that both were staring at Keating’s book. Simultaneously understanding each other, they wordlessly began another staring contest, eyes sharpening in concentration as they listened to Keating.

_“... You say you are afraid I shall think you do not love me—in saying this you make me ache the more to be near you… “_

Todd visibly flinched (or at least to Neil, who had been carefully watching him for a single blink), eyes darting over to their teacher in an uncalled panic. By the time he turned back, Neil was already gesturing about his win, smirking triumphantly. Todd shook his head as if to reset himself, blinking rapidly before steadying his gaze, urging for a second round. Unable to resist the opportunity to stare at Todd for longer, Neil easily complied.

_“... I kiss’d your Writing over in the hope you had indulg’d me by leaving a trace of honey. What was your dream? Tell it me and I will tell you the interpretation threreof.”_

This time, it was Neil’s turn to falter, having so tuned in to Keating’s reading that his mind had wandered back to Todd’s own letters. What if Todd knew of Neil’s snooping, of his worshipping over the secret letters? He could hardly bear to hold them, what kind of feeling would be evoked if he were to _kiss_ the handwriting?

By the time Neil’s sight focused again, Todd was the one pointing to himself and smirking triumphantly. Keating was already reading the postscript of the letter. When he finished, he snapped the book shut and looked up, glancing around at the curious faces around him.

“John Keats wrote some of the most famous love letters in history to the lucky lady Fanny Brawne. Now, it’s not just because of my namesake that I claim this, but Keats was the most remarkable in his romantic writing. It’s a real shame the poor chap only lived to see twenty-five, having been another wretched victim forsaken to tuberculosis."

Keating suddenly leapt to his feet, and a lot of the boys leaned back slightly in his presence. He beamed down to all of them, playful in demeanour as if he were about to tell them of wonderful news.

“This, gentlemen, is why context and subtext is so _brilliant_ !” As he spoke, his voice rose dramatically, pulling them in like the current as he spun around excitedly, looking upon each of his students. “With receiving context, understanding the background of a piece of text, you paint yourself a picture. Perhaps there are jokes or universal understandings, lost to time. Perhaps there is a reference that only the author and the recipient are to decipher, where simple words can become the most complex of codes. It was in the past year that I had the benefit of meeting Kenneth Noland by chance, and, in his words, said that _“for me context is the key — from that comes the understanding of everything.”_ ”

Neil, having lost sight of Todd behind his teacher, gripped at the sleeve of his sweater, toying with the wearing threads. Being on the topic of love letters in the first place made him guilty to begin with, but there was a trickling sense of excitement running down his spine and flooding his chest — much like the thrill someone feels as they are caught in a paradox of desperately wanting to hide themselves and desperately wanting to be found.

“And subtext? Oh, what a marvelous technique. Often, subtext can be left up to the reader’s interpretation. Sometimes it is present, in context, through code for only a set of persons to decipher, and other times it is only implied, only breadcrumbs of the author’s subconscious.” Keating marched to the front of the classroom, placing the book on his desk and standing in front of everyone casually, his hands in his front pockets. “Through context and subtext, we can live through just a fragment of lives such as that of John Keats’ and Fanny Brawne’s, allowing our imagination to light a flame in the words and bring them to life.”

Suddenly, Keating hopped back down to where the students were, leaning down and dropping his voice as if he were telling a secret. The rest of the boys refrained from moving, worried that they’d miss so much as a word if they moved even a muscle.

“Now, because I would like for you to truly explore the potential of subtext —or context as well, if you can pull it off— I have a very special assignment for you.” He straightened briefly to allow his voice to carry for a comment. “Don’t be like that, Dalton: I’m sure you’ll especially have a lot of fun with this assignment, if you so choose.” Smiling to the rest of the boys, he continued, his voice vibrating with energy.

“I’d like for each and every one of you to write me a letter. _Ah, ah, ah_ : I’m not finished. I’d like for you to write me a letter responding to someone… or even some _thing_ . I don’t give a rat’s ass what you pick, whether it be a love letter or a complaint to the government, but you must pick _well_ , my friends. Don’t explain. _Describe_. Make the reader gather clues. Make the reader ask questions. Make the reader live in the shoes of someone we’d like to know more about.”

The bell rang, interrupting Keating. He glanced up for its source briefly before straightening up, raising his voice over the clamor of students shifting and putting their things away.

“I want this assignment handed in and presented on Monday! That gives you the entire weekend, lads! And yes — _presented_ ,” he repeated, turning to look at Todd. “If you don’t have anything ready for then, then you are welcome to make something up on the spot.” Keating winked at Todd, who was beginning to look a bit queasy.

And when Neil tried to think of the context in his own situation, he’d imagine he’d feel just as queasy if he were put in Todd’s shoes.

 

* * *

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

_How blissful it would be,_  
_So simple and so free,_  
 _To live without fear_  
 _And that, my dear,_  
 _Is what I see in you._

 

_What I cannot express_  
_And, in my speech, digress,_  
 _Flows from you with ease_  
 _Light as the fresh breeze,_  
 _To appease_  
 _To please_  
 _Those around you._

 

_Tis you I yearn_  
_To listen to and discern;_  
 _To speak emphatically_  
 _And live dramatically,_  
 _Which then I learn from you._

 

_Behind a mask you lie,_  
_A soul to wither and die,_  
 _Hiding fears I cannot see_  
 _And terrors I never want to be_  
 _Another part of you._

 

_Allow me to reciprocate,_  
_To alleviate that heavy weight,_  
 _And I’ll do something more than great._  
 _But just for now, I’ll wait,_  
 _For you to trust in me._

 

_Yours truly_

 

* * *

 

Though it was a Friday evening, boys were still crammed in their rooms, finishing up the last of their studying. There were, of course, exceptions, but that was to be expected with people like Charlie milling around the halls.

The Perry and Anderson door was closed, with both boys having committed to working without any disturbances. Todd was sitting at his desk (as per usual) and Neil had retreated to his bed on the other side of the room, trigonometry textbook propped up in his lap.

Honestly speaking, Neil was barely concentrating on what he was supposed to be studying. His mind had wandered over to the Dead Poets Society meeting that was scheduled to be in about two hours, and his gaze kept on flickering to _Five Centuries_ , which was half-hidden in his blankets.

Speaking of Dead Poets and literature, Neil was abruptly reminded of the assignment Keating had assigned them the day before. To his knowledge, no one had been able to start anything of it yet, and would probably become a main topic of discussion in tonight’s meeting. Neil was almost too distracted about thinking what Todd was going to write to think of his own content. _He couldn’t just use one of his own letters, could he?_ _Nah_ : Todd would never be gutsy enough to submit something so genuine with too much forethought.

Music buzzed softly from somewhere in their room, and Neil automatically tuned in to it as he thought, absently enjoying its presence.

Until, that is, he began to wonder its origin.

Because it was _humming_.

And Neil almost had a hard time believing that it came from his roommate.

Todd must have been doing it without realizing, because for as long as Neil stared, Todd made no indication that he knew what he was doing. In addition to humming what was definitely a familiar tune, he was slowly spinning a pencil between his fingers, staring at a notebook under his nose.

_Oh. He was humming Gone With The Wind._ Neil had heard Ella Fitzgerald singing it only a year or two ago, so he wondered if Todd had perhaps heard her rendition as well.

Unafraid of breaking the boy’s reverie, Neil joined in, staring at the back of Todd’s head as he hummed the melody. The second Neil made a noise, Todd froze up, his entire posture tensing. Smiling, Neil continued on, carrying the melody for him.

Todd… was listening to him. It took him a few seconds to process what had occurred, but as his shoulders dropped back to their regular position, he cocked his head to the side, angling an ear to listen. By the time Neil finished a phrase, chest exhausted of air, Todd joined back in, wonderously weaving his voice within the other’s. His pencil got back to work.

Sometimes they’d fall out of sync, sometimes they’d fall out of tune (neither would claim to be excellent singers, as they had never committed to the practice aside from during mass), but nothing could compare to the absolute peace Neil felt in those moments, humming the slow ballad as night inched into every crevice of the room.

By the time they finished the chorus for what must have been the third unnecessary time, they paused for a few moments to catch their breath, unaware of how to actually voice their little interaction, if at all.

Surprisingly, Todd was the first one to speak. “Didn’t realize you knew that.”

Neil laughed, giddy from their atmosphere. “Heard Ella sing it, and it was one of the most beautiful renditions I’ve ever heard.”

“Fitzgerald?”

“You know it.”

“Mm. I know how you feel.”

“Do you have any other earworms?”

“No. Do you?”

Neil thought for a while before finally picking out something older, humming gaily without being able to conceal a grin.

“Dean Martin?” Todd giggled, having swivelled around in his chair to watch Neil.

“ _That’s amore_ ,” Neil sung, winking at him, eliciting another few laughs from the other.

Happily, Todd joined him as he reached the next phrase, too distracted to fully pay attention to his studies. So distracted, in fact, that they failed to notice Charlie, who had peeked through their door smirking at some point, having come to remind them of the meeting that night.

 

* * *

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_

 

_It feels like we’re dancing; we may not yet know what we are dancing around and only in my wildest dreams do I wish it be the same thing, but in some mysterious manner we are dancing to the same rhythm._

_There is a gentle waltz playing, can you hear? From side to side we sway, lapping softly like waves in the sea. It is a tune that most will dance to, whether they hear different themes or their feet move to a different beat. Before now, I firmly believed I could not dance, but now I have been swept away by your charm, and forever my life has been changed._

 

_Yours truly_

 

* * *

 

Time had already progressed so that it was well into Saturday, and Neil still hadn’t the faintest as to what he was supposed to write about; with the rest of his homework mostly done for the weekend, the task of writing the letter sat blaringly in his to-do list.

As Neil had predicted, the Dead Poets Society was thrilled to go over ideas for their letters. It was no surprise that Knox was going to write something that was clearly inspired by Chris, despite the fact he had been laughed at for writing a poem about her only a few weeks ago (the Poets teased him about it, but nevertheless, they still supported him and even supplied him with ideas for phrases, albeit some quite lewd). Charlie claimed that he was going to write something as sensual and obscene as possible, but Neil had a feeling something of loneliness would end up seeping into his writing.

But in the end, Neil was still stuck on getting his pen to paper, having spent his time letting himself be lost in his wandering mind. There had been suggestions for him to write something about acting or inspiration or whatever, but the mere mention of _letters_ had Neil remembering Todd’s writing, which he then struggled to imagine how to live up to such masterpieces. Logically, he realized it was stupid to compare himself to someone else’s work so religiously, but the letters had become so ingrained to his life at this point that he really couldn’t help it.

Sighing loudly, Neil stretched, arching his back against his chair. He rubbed at his eyes behind his glasses, deciding to take a break and perhaps a walk just to refresh his mind. When he twisted in his seat to check on his roommate, he was greeted with an empty room — evidently, Todd had snuck out to consult a teacher or take a bathroom break. Standing up, Neil grabbed a notebook and left as well, turning off the light behind him.

Having decided to be efficient, Neil found himself searching for Keating’s office, which was stuffed in the corner of some building just a few minutes’ walk from their dorm. He relished in the fresh air and the leg stretch, easing his mind from any lingering stress. By the time he reached the isolated hallway where Keating’s office hid, the world seemed almost barren around him, the teachers probably tucked away in their offices or occupied with other concerns.

Neil jogged up to Keating’s door, which was shut, and lifted his fist to knock on the wood before he paused, having heard a voice rise and fall quite suddenly inside. Curious, Neil let his arm fall to his side and pressed an ear to the door.

_“I would have thought you’d be an expert in this realm, my boy.”_ Keating… so he was preoccupied. Neil wouldn’t interrupt.

_“I wouldn’t say that, Captain.”_ So that’s where Todd must have gone to. Neil pressed closer, hoping his balance would keep so that he didn’t give away his location.

_“Nonsense! You really do have a knack for putting yourself down, don’t you? Well, that doesn’t matter now; I take it you had something you wanted to show me?”_

_“Oh, no, sir: it’s not good, I just thought… it’d help me, erm, get ideas? For my project?”_ So Todd was stuck too. Neil smiled.

_“All the good reason for me to read!”_

_“But Captain…”_

_“Todd: by no means am I forcing you to show me a piece of your soul that you are not willing to share, but let it be known that you have the most magnificent mind in that head of yours and I would be honoured to read something of your creation.”_

There was a pause, some shifting and rustling of paper, and then: _“There’s no need to over-exaggerate like that.”_

_“I promise you that I am not.”_

Now that Keating must have received the prose at this point and was reading it, as neither made any sounds. Neil, having neared a cramp in his leg, moved to silently sit at the foot of the door, confident that their meeting wasn’t to end very soon. Even down the hall was completely silent, where both students and professors had yet to pass Neil since he had arrived.

_“Marvellous. Absolutely breathtaking,”_ Keating finally gasped, and Neil pressed his ear closer to the crack in the door.

_“That wasn’t my best.”_

_“There were still great lines in there. Why not you best?”_

_“Well, this one had more… subtext, I guess. And…”_

_“The others are more embarrassing?”_

Todd made some noises of acknowledgement, and Neil suddenly felt guilty. Well of course they were personal, what was he expecting?

_“It’s alright, I’ve written my own fair share of letters: I can imagine,”_ Keating continued, sparing Todd from being too flustered. _“And so? You’re thinking of writing something similar to that?”_

_“I don’t think so. It was already unbearable to even let you read it, let alone trying to read it to the class.”_

_“Now then? What are you going to do? What will you write?”_

_“That’s why I came to you, Captain.”_

_“You know, I came up with this assignment thinking of you.”_

_“Should I be flattered?”_

Keating laughed. _“You look too perplexed to be, which is alright. I can see the position I put you in.”_

There were a few moments of silence between the two. Neil began to wonder if he’d missed anything before Keating spoke up again.

_“How’s it going between the two of you?”_

_“Hm? Who?”_

_“Who do you think we’re talking about?”_

_“Oh. Er, same as usual.”_

_“And? Honestly speaking, what’s your take on that?”_

_“I don’t know… what am I supposed to feel?”_

_“I know you’re not one for expressing emotion, Todd, but allow yourself to be poetic. How would you phrase it in one of your letters?”_

_“Um… lonely, perhaps? I am in their constant companionship, yet I have never felt more alone.”_

_“See, that is brilliant. Are you not able to talk to them about this?”_

_“You know you’re the only person I can talk to about this.”_

_“I see. Well, do you not open up to them?”_

_“Sometimes, but any time I dodge the truth it feels like I’m just getting further away.”_

_“Why don’t you write about that, then? The loneliness.”_

_“I couldn’t-”_

_“It doesn’t have to be in that manner, my dear boy: that of a friendship is still so important. Have the lines not blurred yet, where friendship and perhaps something more become indistinguishable from each other?”_

_“I suppose so. But how do I write about that?”_

_“What’s the loneliest part about your relationship. How about your letters?”_

_“The loneliest… Probably the absence of a response.”_

_“Quite right… letters always feel as if they should be responded to. You’ve written yourself into quite the paradox, my friend.”_

Neil didn’t catch whatever last words the two exchanged, however much it was to be. He was already back on his feet, treading softly away so as to not hint that he was even there in the first place, eavesdropping such a private conversation.

After all, Neil had finally gotten what he’d been searching for.

He knew what he was going to write for his letter.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh oof i hope it doesnt get too ooc or the writing didnt go down in quality too much but please look forward to the next chapter... it has... well, an exciting scene, i suppose. what we've all been waiting for.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At long last, it is time for Neil to present his response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW TWO MONTHS sorry yall BUT i did a million ib exams in may and then just last week i finished the last of my diplomas, graduated high school, and turned into an unfortunately legal adult the day after can i get a wahoo. now that im free from the confines of studying (mostly, because im a dumbass), i was able to finish this bad boy up for yalls enjoyment!!! its been a pleasure to write this honestly and i hope yall like the long anticipated conclusion :^) it's not thoroughly edited but Hey. its midnight so this'll do
> 
> also random note while i was mopping the cat porch today, "I'm Going To Write Myself a Letter" (Fats Waller's rendition) came on my playlist cause im a nerd and I just realized thats kind of relevant to this fic, so feel free to check it out on spotify or wherever if u wanna hear it from todd's pov i guess
> 
> ilyall <3

Rehearsal for the play ran overtime as the evening befell, and Neil found himself collapsing onto legs and a bed that wasn’t his, absolutely spent from the day’s events. Todd, of course, complained and chided him, kicking up at Neil so that the boy would at least go to his own space. Neil only half complied, tossing his jacket over to his side of the room but settling down at the foot of Todd’s bed, directly across from the other. Their legs stayed tangled from their confrontation, but neither seemed to pay much attention to the matter (or at least, that is, from the outside). 

Though it was the final piece of work with a deadline that Neil had for the weekend, he found it terribly ironic that he had to write his letter in such close proximity of the subject; it made all the thoughts of each letter Todd had written all the more intrusive. Still, Neil fiddled with his pencil, trying his best to dig through his memory for the right words.

“Are you stuck?” Todd had hummed without glancing up from his book — Neil had to take a moment to refocus and process his words. “You’ve been staring for a while.”

Neil blinked. _Had he been unconsciously staring at Todd?_ He cocked his head to the side, moving his hand to scratch at the back of his neck. “Hm?”

Todd wrote something down before finally looking up. “Did you need something?”

“Oh-”

“Phrasing or something?”

“I probably did, but I’ve already forgotten what it was.”

“Are you writing your letter for Keating?”

“Yeah. I think I’m more of a performer than a writer.”

Todd threw him a curious expression. “Would you like me to help you write it?”

Neil hesitated. _Well, technically…_ No, he couldn’t do something like that. His heartbeat was already fluttering a touch too quickly, and he had to concentrate on stilling himself completely. 

“No, I’m fine,” he smiled, attempting to appear nonchalant. “I just need to remember what I was going to say.”

“Not even edit?”

“Nope!”

“... Could I at least read it?”

Neil squeezed his pencil so tightly he almost worried that it would snap. “I wanted to keep it a surprise,” he responded softly.

“Surprise?” Todd smirked. “For who?”

He kicked Todd gently. “I dunno… _everyone_. I’m allowed to keep secrets every once in a while, aren’t I?”

“Are you?” he asked mischievously. 

“Well, even if I _am_ undeserving, can’t you bear to wait just a couple more days? Have you even finished your letter?”

“No, not yet. I don’t know how to start it yet.”

“You haven’t even _started_ it yet?” Neil exclaimed incredulously. 

Todd shook his head. “No, no, of course I have. I have an end in mind — I just don’t have a beginning.”

“Can’t you just… _start_ it?”

“Don’t know how to get there.”

“... I’d say I’d help you but I think that would be a bit hypocritical of me.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll think about it before I go to sleep tonight.”

“Mm,” Neil said before he remembered something else and promptly scribbled down the idea in his notebook. It was a bit difficult to articulate his thoughts exactly, but wording would come with editing. As he was writing, he offhandedly noticed that his leg was falling asleep due to it being trapped underneath Todd’s ankles.

And somehow, for some reason, Neil couldn’t bring himself to care.

 

* * *

 

There were no new letters when Neil checked the top of Todd’s closet that night.

Neil couldn’t help but feel trepidation in what Todd might be writing for Monday.

 

* * *

 

Neil didn’t know how, exactly, he was swayed, but all he could do now as Charlie read his letter was to sit as calmly as possible.

It was… difficult trying to figure out what to do with his hands. Or his eyes. Or his breath. One second he was fine with staring at the wall, but the next second he’d become curious and watched Charlie for any microexpressions. Somehow, Charlie was keeping up a pretty good poker face, so it wasn’t much use either way. Neil was also long done reading over Charlie’s letter (which was considerably shorter than his own), so he had to consciously mind his fingers to not dog-ear the corners of Charlie’s paper.

Did he want Charlie to read it? Of course. Neil wanted someone else to confide in, someone to support him from the sidelines and just to know of the burning secret he would barely be able to keep until Monday. He needed to share it with _someone_ . That, and Charlie had a suspicion about what his letter was going to be, having repetitively bugged Neil until he caved and let him read it. It’s not like he knew of the contents of _Todd’s_ letters, but even just letting him in on half of the story (without Todd’s letters) was consoling enough.

Shifting on Charlie’s bed so that it creaked, he set Charlie’s letter aside and watched his friend (who was sat on the floor) finish scanning the rest of Neil’s letter. It almost felt personal in the amount of concentration Charlie had over his writing, but Neil bit his lip to wait out any final reactions his friend would have.

At last, Charlie set the letter down slowly, drifting his gaze up to Neil. He scrutinized Neil for a while, processing what he just read and formulating a response, before a grin broke out across his face, teasingly between something mischievous and something supportive.

“It’s to _him_ , isn’t it,” he speculated, turning the page over to the beginning of the letter.

“Yes. Is it obvious?”

“Yep! Clear as crystal.”

Neil winced. “Should I write something else?”

“ _What?_ And trash that masterpiece? Of course not — it’s only obvious to _me_ because I know exactly who you’ve had your eye on. Todd’s so dense I don’t think he’ll even be able to tell.”

Neil sighed in relief. He knew that the last statement was definitely not quite true, but he wasn’t about to explain everything in full to Charlie quite yet (maybe he’d get to that later, but reading Todd’s letters himself was already such a breach of privacy that the best he could potentially achieve would be a brief summary of their contents and purpose). 

“It’s really well written, though.”

“Thanks.”

“Is it…?”

Neil nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, it is actually.” Charlie also nodded, processing the context of Neil’s letter as he rescanned its contents.

“For an assignment based on context, it’s going to be a hell of a ride for everyone in class.”

“Keating, especially,” Neil groaned, rubbing an eye tiredly as he remembered. “I think he’s got some suspicions, especially after I came to him about the Oscar Wilde poem."

“That’ll do it.”

“I know, because that’s what did it for you, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, definitely. That and all the staring.”

“Thanks man.”

Sitting up, Charlie leaned forward and passed the letter back to its author. In turn, Neil scrambled for Charlie’s letter and also returned it. Once his writing was back in his hands, he leaned back against the wall and set his letter on his lap, folding his hands together to rest atop of the paper.

“What if I can’t do it tomorrow?”

“And give up now? C’mon, Neil: it’s not _that_ obvious. You can just say it’s some girl from a fantasy of yours.”

“No, Charlie, it’s not that easy. He’ll be able to tell right away.”

“Well, you don’t have to if you don’t wanna, but if you want to do something about it then you definitely should.”

“What if I don’t _want_ to do anything about it?”

“If you didn’t want to do anything about it then you wouldn’t have written that damn letter in the first place.”

Both boys resorted to staring absently around the room for a minute or two. Charlie was right, of course, but fuck did it ever scare the shit out of Neil. He was tempted to put on the persona of someone else entirely when he was to present his letter just so he could get through his presentation, but it wouldn’t be right. His letter was so authentic, so palpably from his soul that it would be impossible to detach himself from its words anyway.

“You know I’ll be at the back of the class cheering you on…” Charlie murmured, still staring at the door, “right?”

Neil’s gaze dropped down to his hands, where he was playing with his own fingers. “Yeah.”

“I’ll cheer really loudly.”

“Please don’t do that.”

“I’ve got your back, man.”

“Thanks, Charlie. Really, I mean it.”

“That’s what friends are for: they help get each other d-”

“Charlie you are the worst and I hope you know that.”

 

* * *

 

“I’m sorry sir-” Neil glanced up at his professor before scrambling for words, “er- I mean- Captain… could I… would it be possible for me to go last?”

Keating raised an eyebrow. “You want to go last, my dear boy? This is unusual.”

Neil shifted agitatedly. “Well, I haven’t completely finished it yet, you see… I have a few last-minute things I forgot to edit.”

“Are you sure that that is all that’s on your mind?”

The class still had a minute or two until it started. Though the class was full of his peers, Neil still felt like he held just enough privacy with his teacher in how the rest of the boys chatted loudly, trying to get a preview of each other’s projects. Neil’s gaze flitted to just over his shoulder before he set his concentration back on his teacher, grounding himself in his stance and taking a deep breath.

“I wrote something that is very important to me; I still need some time to process my motivation.”

Keating’s eyes twinkled with mirth, and the smile on his face let a wave of understanding wash over Neil. “Of course you may. I’ll keep it in mind.” He slapped Neil’s shoulder, gently ushering him back down to where the desks were. “Hurry along; the period’s about to start.”

More than grateful, Neil scurried along into the crowd, settling down at his desk with his letter safely face-down. Slipping back into a laid-back nature, he laughed easily at some joke made within his vicinity, internally urging himself to relax. His eyes lingered where Todd sat, already scrutinizing every nuance of his manner. 

The project was only as entertaining as the authors made them be: though there were some kids who evidently attempted to scrawl something down the night before in a rush, there was still a considerable amount of boys who had put a lot of thought into their letters to make them an interesting read — or at the very least with some sense of humor. Arguably, Cameron’s letter might have had too much thought put into it (as Keating seemed to be the only one interested in Cameron’s fake letter complaining to the government about taxable revenue and social programs). Knox had something that was supposed to be vague but was very obviously romantically pining over Chris (which, this time, he presented with more pride rather than insecurity), Meeks wrote a letter to his parents requesting for money, and Pitts wrote something that could be taken rather lewd every step of the way. Charlie’s letter was perhaps the most interesting thus far (at least for Neil), as he presented his also rather lewd letter with his usual confidence and swagger, but the tone of melancholy buried deep within the words didn’t fly by Neil, and he attempted to study closely where Charlie’s gaze flickered the most. They all definitely laughed more than once, but Neil was probably one of the only people to realize that it was a self-deprecating lament disguised in a fantasy.

At last, Keating finally turned to Todd and called him up. Todd —who had been leaning against his arm as he listened— jolted up in surprise, blinking back up at his professor. He smiled unsurely, throwing a glance at Neil’s way. When Neil only smiled back in encouragement and joined in a cheering whoop that Charlie started, Todd stood up and grabbed a paper from his desk, keeping it close to his chest all the while. Standing up at the classroom rendered Todd to still be meek, but the smile of initially faux confidence made all the difference from the poetry assignment. Chuckling slightly under the pressure, he unfolded his paper and stared down at it, flattening out its folds.

“Would you like to explain anything to us beforehand?” Keating asked him.

“I thought we were supposed to give context through the letter, sir.”

“Very good, Todd. Please: continue.”

Glancing up at his audience one last time, Todd shifted from foot to foot and cleared his voice.

“ _A note to a good friend:_

_It feels as though a long while has passed since we last met, when really, we are in our constant companionship. Every day I write, hoping that you’d understand yet never wishing for you to read, satisfied with my fabricated response. I hope you are not too bothered by my words failing to reach you, but I believe my sentiment at the very least can be expressed in our every interaction._

_How long has it been since we were first drawn together, worked into the web of truths that composes our lives? I find myself watching as lines blur, but now more than ever I find myself content in your company, complacent at wherever our friendship may arrive._

_Nevertheless, I still fear and hold tight my fear of upset; I dodge the truth and fall further away from our ties, knotting the web of our lives until I cannot reach you. Am I doing this for your safety, or is it for mine? Am I selfish in what I seek, only to protect my wishes and me? It is most unfortunate that I cannot uphold my part, most unfortunate that I must involve you with me. Still, our environment forces us together, and I pray that I will not remain a nuisance to thee. Perhaps my past will not catch up, and perhaps I’ll writhe myself free to start anew._

_It is truly a shame that yet again, these words will soon be nothing but shelter for dust, just like the rest of their kin. Oftentimes, letters are written with the purpose of receiving an answer, but the silly paradox I have drawn myself into allows no such thing. Though you are in my constant presence, coupled with my false reassurances, I have never felt more alone._

_The loneliest element of this all is the lack of a response._

_I realize it is asking for the impossible when this part of me is but naught in your knowledge, so I will continue to suffer in my arduous silence. Perhaps it is not in my best interest to ask of your father, but tonight I will hope that words will be kind to you, and that dreams of sprites may protect your toiled happiness._

_Best wishes,_

_A close acquaintance.”_

Todd still held his letter in front of him a few moments after he finished, allowing his writing to settle with the rest of the class. Despite the fact he was smiling awkwardly, attempting to appear confident in front of his peers, a red blush easily dusted the tips of his ears and threatened to creep over his cheeks. He hovered for a while, waiting for any sort of acknowledgement. 

Though he was not the first to give Todd the validation he deserved, Neil was snapped out of his reverie by applause just behind him, and, like in a trance, he brought his own hands together; the only thing in the world that he was sure of at that moment was that Todd was brilliant and everyone else needed to know about his brilliance. When Todd’s gaze drifted over and locked with his, Neil realized with a pang that this was the first time Todd had shared his letters with anyone (well… with the exception of Keating, he inferred)... willingly, that is. Feeling guilt well up inside, Neil let his gaze slip to the side, suddenly awkward under Todd’s attention. After all, what he was about to do was definitely going to make things a whole lot different between them. Frowning, Neil grabbed a pencil and squeezed in a line or two at the beginning of his own letter.

Keating was currently praising Todd (which, thank the Lord, distracted his attention for the time being) and allowed Neil to refocus on his own project. Though, it was slightly difficult as a wry thought ran amok in his mind, asking whether or not the subject of Todd’s letter could have really been him or someone else entirely. Was it made up? Was he just being self-centered? Neil scanned the contents of his own letter without actually taking anything in, feeling sicker by the moment.

“Mr. Perry?”

Neil’s eyes snapped up to the front, only to realize that the entire class was looking at him. He blinked at his teacher before noticing that Todd had already sat down.

“Would you like to come up to the front to perform your letter, Mr. Perry?” Keating asked again, spurring Neil into action.

“Oh, er, yes, Captain,” he rushed, standing up and forcing himself not to teeter. Grinning, he grasped his letter as tightly as he could without damaging it and strode to the front of the classroom, meticulously minding his balance as he stepped onto the raised platform. 

“I presume you have prepared quite the show?” Mr. Keating stepped to the side, and, to Neil’s horror, right beside Todd’s desk, leaning against the wall so he could easily see both boys’ expressions. _Of course he had an inkling about what Neil had written about._

“Yes, well, I hope so, Captain.”

“Well, then: whenever you’re ready.”

Performance was an act that Neil loved more than anything, yet it was almost impossible for him to get the room to stop turning. Curious eyes burned his skin from every angle, and the boards underneath his feet felt uneven. Nothing about his posture felt natural, and he was hyper-aware of his own breathing. 

_This was a bad idea. All of this was absolutely catastrophic._ Neil was about to reveal the deepest, darkest secret not only of himself but also of someone else to the rest of the world. There was some reassurance in thinking that perhaps no one else would latch on, but even the mere thought of one person knowing was absolutely terrifying to Neil. 

This was punishment; this was cruel, twisted punishment so he could come clean with his wrongdoings.

Neil couldn’t even begin to imagine what Todd would feel like the moment he’d begin to recite his letter.

Somehow, through the haze of unsureness, Neil spotted Charlie at the back of the classroom; something about his presence was calming, reassuring in how no matter what, he was always going to support him. Just for him, Neil fought out a smirk with a huff, focusing his attention on the letter in his hands.

Clearing his throat and taking a deep breath, Neil began to speak.

_“Mine truly,_

_Forgive me for what I have done and for what I am about to do, for long overdue is my impossible response to your unspoken letters. We are both trapped in this web together, and in our constant companionship we must breach the distance so that we are never alone.”_

For the first time since he started presenting, Neil took a chance in his breath and looked up — it was only a glance, but in that time, his gaze drifted to one boy in particular, who sat frozen in the front corner of the room. He seemed lost at first, but then his eyes flew wide open with terror. Todd grew red in his dreadful silence, unable to properly look back at Neil. Neil gulped, then continued.

_“There’s a gentle waltz playing — I can hear it too. I firmly believe that anyone can dance, so hand in hand, I will show you what is true, and thus forever our lives will be changed. In this beat, the pulse of two coexistent hearts, I wish my wildest dreams would align with yours so as to not be one to play the fool._

_How blissful it would be, so simple and so free, to live without instability, and that, my dear, is what I see in you. What I cannot receive, and in my actions, believe, you hold each day, easy as the sea spray, they say, your way, to lasting comfort. Tis you I yearn, to read and to discern; to write dramatically and to live emphatically, which then I learn from you. Behind a blanket you lie, a soul to wither and die, hiding insecurities I cannot see, and terrors I never want to be another part of you. Allow me to reciprocate, to alleviate that heavy weight, and I’ll do something more than great, but just for now, I’ll wait for you to trust in me._

_Is it the future you ponder? We can only predict where we will end up, where our lives will be led, but we may strive to reach an ideal of where we wish to be. It is particularly beguiling that you find good influence in me, but still I’ll take your hand and give you something else to cling on as you are flung from your nest. Forever I will continue, blindfolded on a tightrope, because I have hope that whatever is to come will be kind, where whatever hell or paradise that awaits me will welcome me with full bravado into their open arms and my true destiny will be fulfilled._

_With gaze as soft as feathers and as kind as the destitute, you paint a picture of me I was unaware. Instead, I gaze back down, through caliginosity in the twilight, I see my whole world beneath me, illuminated by brilliant light only now peeking through your surface. I watch the earth and two eyes blink back at me, and, caught up in the euphoria I have found while admiring, I am enticed to pry further, to encounter the origins of this brand-new and bright twinkling blinking back at me.”_

Though Neil was caught up in the rhythm of his letter, he glanced up —only for a moment— to drink in his surroundings. The other boys were enraptured, of course, (to some extent), and Charlie was smirking all the while, but Todd had buried his head in his arms, unable to cope with whatever Neil was undoubtedly exposing him to. Attempting to shove away the impending guilt that crept from the floor like carnivorous vines, Neil shivered and returned to his writing.

_“Many a night I find you join my merry slumber, but as in our mutual dreams, I cannot discern whether tis your or your visage that joins me. Though, why should it be better that you fall for my image? At least, with your image, I am joined by new company, fading gradually into my everyday life. All I must do is close my eyes and you are there, smiling softly and watching over me kindly like my guardian angel. Sometimes I, too, find that sleep has become more than just a rest for me, where I am later left craving more of your imaginary taste and sweet words. And why be afraid to love my image when I am more than ecstatic to comply, merging your image of me with the person you love dearly? There is no need for your happiness to be your asphyxiator, and I have been dying for you to bypass fate and interfere. Envy is no foreigner to me, but I’ll thrive in the realm of your jealousy, for no other is the candidate to my affection._

_Rarely is my head filled with nothing at all. If you must know, if you wish to see what the world looks like from my eyes, there is always a symphony playing, a cacophony of energy buzzing, whispering, and humming in my ears. I see the world with rose-coloured glasses, but a glass half full can be a glass half empty all the same. A library full of fantastical and fictional worlds available to a wont of reveries tempts me, and the serpent of Eden leads me further down that enticing labyrinth. Come and entertain yourself with these presumptions: do not fear misinterpretation, for we are made to fear our percipience, the right between right and wrong._

_I do not think I had truly realized the extent to which I am emotionally bound to you until you wrote. My chest aches as your inquisitive eyes and shy smile envelop my every waking thought. I, too, tell myself to enjoy my time away, but I do not know whether to pride or shame myself from my failure — you have become my anchor and my muse, and I am dependant on your presence to feel pure joy. Despite your presence in my every thought, still you are so unsuspecting, having only watched upon the mask I must use to conceal my hidden intentions. I would be happy simply basking in your presence, but now I have broken through, baring myself to the world. It’s queer how the air suddenly changes, and all this time it’s become harder to breathe and it feels like my chest wants to cave in. No longer can I forget this fickle silliness of whatever business has been happening inside of my head. Funny how much of a hopeless romantic I’ve become — are you the one to blame? Or is it us both, falling in tandem?”_

During the last paragraph, Neil had glanced up momentarily in time to see the dawning of a revelation across Keating’s features: though he had probably suspected what his letter was about, Neil had probably briefed over the one letter Todd had allowed Keating to read, and now his professor was impossibly more invested in Neil’s letter. Keating’s eyes had flickered to Todd, realizing how much more impactful Neil’s words truly were. Neil thumbed at his paper nervously, pushing himself forward to be able to complete his performance.

_“I have met the lovely spider, are she and I really the same? It’s true I have a large character that must shoulder all the blame. Still I try, to live and let die my worries, and sigh, a blissful rendition of your name. I have felt a sense of longing, and in it I feel no rest. I have been trapped by my own web, caught in my own breath. Caught up and drowned, too late to be found, no voice and no sound, to present you my very best.”_

Neil paused for a few seconds to clear his throat, vividly aware of the contents of his next paragraph. He dared to glance up at Todd in that time, barely catching how his mind must have led him to the same area as his eyes widened. Growing even redder, Todd buried his face even further into his arms. Gulping, Neil shifted on his feet before continuing.

_“I can see why you would hesitate to write on this subject, but the event was certainly most striking in how it even sparked revelation in my own thoughts, greeting me in times least suitable. I imagined what must be a siren approaching me, a ghostly visage of my deepest, most hidden desires, and slowly I succumbed, giving in to such a sly temptation presented before me. There was only shock and confusion at first, but the allurement only you could offer in my head peaked all at once and I became a lost man. Many a time do I end up seeking that electric emotion, overcome with its crushing intensity. I pray God will forgive me every time I see your face, reminded all too well of the siren’s image that has since been pleasantly haunting me.”_

Todd’s mouth was pressed tightly into his arm, and he stared intensely out in front of him, seriously avoiding Neil’s gaze. Keating had an eyebrow raised, cautiously stilling himself as to pretend to not understand exactly the connotations behind every word. Sighing from relief from having finished, Neil turned over the page again for the last few paragraphs.

_“I never considered how our souls may have been drawn so close together until your revelation, as the juxtaposition of our idiosyncrasies are undoubtedly and wholly a part of us. I believe that this mutualism was not initially intentional, but you must be dense to not realize that it has evolved into something deliberate, realer than any god that watches over us. It is with wholehearted honour that I receive your praise, and maybe it is your words and your praise that I hear as I perform. Maybe I do cling to your wisdom, driving me into a cyclical continuum where your expression is the inspiration behind my every motive._

_You are my words but I am your voice._

_Together we hold an asomatous duality, seen or unseen, that maintains a balance we unwittingly crave._

_I believe I find an immense satisfaction in reading your words. Your simultaneous presence and absence and your silent speaking offers me a comfort beyond my current understanding. Dreams that swirl freely in my mind becomes an obstacle, stopping me dead in my tracks, for the strength of a fear of imperfection trips me in the same attempt to stop the very same dreams that find freedom within me. It is only here with your comforting image that I am near carefree, unafraid of the threat perfection so holds over my life. Acting is funny in the same way as writing and poetry, yet the fragment of the actor’s soul is easily disguised in that of an entirely new persona, a mask one can hide behind to truly express their sentiments. A phantasmic visage is a better audience than loneliness, so I, too, will cling desperately to your idea until it dissipates from my concern._

_It is with great relief that I am finally responding to you. Though it may have been doubtful for your words to ever reach my ears, I have taken your thoughts with reverence and regret, aware that you have been discovered. Now I find myself addicted to your presence, seeking your voice in my darkest moments to pull me out of the water again. O, how I long to allow you an endless intermission, stopping time itself just to listen to your laugh! Every sleepy murmur and tired gaze you cast is another spell unbeknownst to the magus, and at once I am hypnotized, unable to shake myself from the mind control until dawn knocks on the window._

_It seems I have worked myself into quite a frenzy. Though I have set my confession in place of your remedy, I hope you still plan to write again soon, for I have risked all that I am worth._

_Your dearest beloved.”_

Neil was breathless when he finished. He hadn’t realized how tense he had become, but every breath shook his entire being, and he felt himself rigid in the way he swayed with his balance. No one spoke for a few deafening seconds, and the first to interrupt that unbearable silence was the toll of the school bell.

Almost immediately, the classroom shifted to life again: boys clambered around, trying to gather their belongings and simultaneously cheering for Neil. Neil blinked, somewhat relieved but also feeling that his finale was somewhat anticlimactic… what had he even wanted in the first place, as he would probably be worse off if anyone else had truly understood the meaning behind his letter? There were some peers that commended him for his writing and his performance, but the noise became a background buzz in his brain as he remembered his sole concern of the entire event.

Looking over to where Todd was seated, he felt some panic in the way Todd had already stood up, scrambling to retrieve all of his belongings (which wasn’t much, as all they had planned for that period was the presentation of the letters). His expression was unreadable, but, in a need to explain himself, Neil stepped towards him, beginning to reach out to catch him before he left.

In the flurry of students leaving the classroom, Todd finally picked up the last of his books and fled, escaping from Neil like water through fingers. Still near Todd’s desk, Neil’s steps tried to quicken, stopped abruptly in their momentum as someone grabbed a hold of his arm. Whipping around to berate whoever hindered him, he was greeted with a serious expression from Keating.

“Let him be, Neil,” he warned him seriously. “He will need time to think.”

His grip loosened, but his actions had taken effect. Neil stood in his place, feeling somewhat lost and desperate to do something, but understanding all the same. Meekly, he glanced back at where Todd had disappeared, chest sinking at the thought of his afterimage. 

Biting his lip and frowning, Neil finally stepped off the stage.

 

* * *

 

Neil never caught Todd at supper, as he never made it to the meal in the first place. Meeks was about to comment on Todd’s absence, but Neil barely noticed how he received a firm elbow to the side, effectively shutting him up for the time being.

By the end of the hour, Neil left about half of his meal untouched.

Practice for the play never took as long as it felt like it did that evening, and the director even commented on Neil’s performance being less than usual. Neil did his best to shake himself out of the weird rut he had gotten himself into, but it was evidently no use, as his memory of earlier would return and his stomach would feel queasy all over again.

When Neil finally, _finally_ returned to the dorm, Todd was already asleep. Standing in the doorway, Neil watched him for a while, feeling him grow farther and farther away the longer he stood there.

Remembering to breathe again, Neil shut the door behind him and went right to bed.

 

* * *

 

It was no secret that Todd was avoiding Neil all week. Todd would disappear to the library in his free time and spoke only when it was absolutely necessary. The rest of the Poets knew it, but evidently Charlie had come up with some excuse, so they kept quiet. Keating knew it, but he never said as much as a peep, wisely keeping his nose out of the mess to let the boys figure everything out for themselves. 

There weren’t any new letters either. Not like Neil was expecting any, with what he’d done.

The other letters were removed too, but this time, Neil didn’t bother trying to look for them.

 

* * *

 

Neil couldn’t sleep all week. It definitely was putting a dent into his studying and concentration capcity, but his mind whirred at uncanny speeds and even if he did sleep, it wasn’t very good.

If Todd didn’t sleep that week, Neil wouldn’t have been able to tell; quite unlike Neil, Todd was able to stay very still for a long period of time, which was probably a habit of his upbringing. Neil was quite the opposite, where he’d roll around in his sheets all night, far too uncomfortable to gain any sense of rest. Sometimes he’d get up and pace in the hallway, pretending to go to the washroom multiple times a night — enough that he’d occasionally bump into another boy on their way to take a piss. 

Though, it was already Wednesday, halfway through the week, and Todd had finally joined the rest of them at breakfast (even if he did pointedly ignore Neil, which was still seen as progress in Neil’s eyes)... perhaps something would have changed.

Even though it was rightfully deserved, if something didn’t change soon, Neil definitely felt as if he would die.

Shifting onto his stomach, Neil flipped over his pillow and buried his face into the slightly-cooler side. Still, his thoughts screamed at him, distracting him from the peaceful rest he craved dearly. Shaking his head as hard as he could, Neil propped himself up on his forearms, allowing himself to be able to hear every nuance of the room.

“... _Todd?_ ” he croaked out, having spoken to his roommate for the first time that week.

It is unknown whether Todd was ignoring him or simply fast asleep, but Neil was predictably left without an answer.

_Funny how the absence of a response makes one feel so helplessly alone._

And for the first time that week, Neil wept.

 

* * *

 

Friday night, surprisingly, went quite as it usually did. Though they did not speak, both Neil and Todd put on their cloaks silently in tandem, moving out with the rest of the Dead Poets Society in the dead of night. The rest of the boys’ giggles were contagious, and something of a smile was cracked by both of them as they escaped the confines of their dorm.

By the time they got outside, however, Charlie pulled Neil to the side, calling out to the others and urging them to continue on. He obviously saw there was something wrong still, and though Neil was hesitant to comply, he still remained curious at Charlie’s promise of “spreading mischief”. 

The mischief, as it turned out, was not as anarchistic as Neil thought it was going to be. It was only about two minutes of detour, but then Neil watched as his friend approached some of Welton’s finset rose bushes and reached among their leaves, picking the most beautiful flowers from the collection. Grinning, Neil trotted up to the next rose bush right beside Charlie’s victim.

“Do you know how to make flower crowns?” Charlie asked, humming some ballad that had been on the radio that Meeks and Pitts had gotten to work. Neil flinched away from thorns that threatened to pierce his fingers.

“The finest. Ginny taught me a while ago now.”

“Perfect. Bet I’ll make a better one than you ever could.”

“Yeah right; I’d like to see you try.”

“Deal’s on, you big bastard.”

Laughing, Neil shifted his focus back to flower picking, running his fingers over the softest petals before ripping the stem right from the bush. Thorns prickled at the palm of his hand that held each picked flower, but something about their stinging pain brought satisfaction to Neil, as if it reminded him of the punishment he deserved for his arrogance.

Once they were finished and had collected more than enough flowers, they began walking in the general direction of the Indian Cave, plucking flowers from their cloak pockets to add it to their growing crowns. Neil had gotten used to the pricks now, having gotten his hands covered in tiny scratches and piercings.

“I’ve really fucked it all up, haven’t I,” Neil spoke abruptly, his voice cracking at the end despite trying to make his comment sound like a laugh. Cursing himself, he bit his lip, threading a stem through the other flowers.

“Of course you haven’t,” Charlie replied as nonchalantly as he could, keeping his eyes on his own craft. “It’s still too soon.”

Neil laughed bitterly. “No: I’ve gone and fucked it all up. Now I see why you stay silent.”

“Neil.” Neil stopped laughing at his friend’s voice, but he still stared daggers at his flowers, willing the stinging at his eyes away. “You’re so much less of a coward than I could ever be.”

“How is that true? _How?_ And wouldn’t it be better, better to be the coward-”

“And doing _nothing?_ Do you understand how painful-?”

“Do I _understand?_ _God_ , Charlie… it’s not nearly as painful as losing _everything_.”

Both fell silent for a few minutes. Their words stung, but so did the memories. They were content with the sound of leaves and sticks crunching under their feet for a while, barely seeing telltale landmarks that told them they were getting closer to their destination.

“It was more than a letter, wasn’t it?” Charlie finally murmured. “I’m not quite sure what it was, but it’s obviously so much more important.”

“I _betrayed_ him, Charlie. _Betrayed_ him. He’ll never forgive me, not for this.”

“I’m sure-”

“No, it’s so much more serious than you think. I don’t know _what_ possessed me-”

“It’s _Todd_ we’re talking about… are you sure he won’t forgive you?”

“Yes, I am… and what would _you_ know about him, huh?"

“... I’m only trying to help, Neil.”

“ _Yes, I know,_ and I’m _sorry_. It’s been a really hard week.”

“... You know, I think bad things have to happen before anything good does. To balance the karma or whatever the hell it is.”

Neil was laughing again, but this time with sheer resignation. “Okay. Okay… I don’t think that’s how it works, but I’ll try and believe you for now. I hope it does.”

Charlie grinned.

“So what about you?” Neil piped up again casually.

“What about me?”

“Don’t you want to do anything?”

“About what?”

“About your feelings.”

“I don’t think I could… I never have before.”

“Don’t you want to change?”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Well, don’t do what I did… just take it slowly. Test out the waters.”

“Since when was that ever something I did?”

“So you’re not going to do anything about it?”

Charlie smiled to himself, running his fingers over the thorns of his flowers. “I’ll think about it.” Digging it out with his nail, Charlie removed one of the thorns clean off the stem. “Maybe some change around here would be nice.”

Even if everything did go to shit, Neil was eternally thankful he had Charlie to rely on, and he was equally as happy to provide any support his friend may need. So, when Charlie began to sing, his voice ringing clearly through the forest as they tread, words a hymn of hope, Neil joined in, pleading from the bottom of his heart.

 

_Amazing grace! How sweet the sound_

_That saved a wretch like me!_

_I once was lost, but now am found;_

_Was blind, but now I see._

 

Jumping over a fallen log, Neil took out the last perfect rose from his pocket, trying to find the perfect spot to thread it into his crown. Beside him, Charlie worked deftly at picking thorns from his own flowers.

 

_‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,_

_And grace my fears relieved;_

_How precious did that grace appear_

_The hour I first believed._

 

Bringing the crown to his face, Neil buried his nose in the soft petals of the flowers, breathing in slowly and basking in their sweet scent. They tickled at his cheeks and caught his eyelashes, and loose thorns prickled at his skin. Sighing, he raised the crown above himself and placed it gently on his head, securing it in his hair. In catching himself from tripping over a root, he skipped forward to regain his balance before loping over to catch up with his friend.

 

_The Lord has promised good to me,_

_His Word my hope secures;_

_He will my Shield and Portion be,_

_As long as life endures._

 

“Pity God is not so merciful to us wretched homosexuals,” Neil said, dropping from song once they realized they could see the Indian Cave from where they were.

“There’s no rest for the wicked,” Charlie sing-songed. “It was all good fun, though, while it lasted.”

At last, they reached the confines of the Dead Poets Society meeting spot, which was already smelling quite freshly of smoke. Neil and Charlie clambered in around the rest of the boys, settling into their typical spots. The second Neil saw Todd, sitting quietly by himself opposite to where Neil’s spot usually was, something fell inside of him, and he moved to sit down in silence, gratefully accepting a smoke and a light.

Much to his amusement, however, he watched Charlie skip over to his own spot, gracefully dropping his own de-thorned rose crown on Meeks’ head. Neil stared at the event in awe, watching Meeks grumble in confusion, but Charlie did nothing to give himself away, instead happily going on about starting the meeting. Grinning, Neil brought his smoke to his mouth for another drag. 

Tonight’s meeting was… rather different than any other, and rightfully so. Todd didn’t speak up, which wasn’t so unusual, but neither did Neil. Nobody commented much on it, though they did occasionally try to drag him into their conversation, nudging him by the elbow or asking him a question. Neil would smile and nod his head, concentrated more on smoking his cigarette or trying to fit the one loose rose back into his crown.

There were a few times Neil noticed Todd’s eyes on him. It wasn’t like it was all the time, of course: most of the time, they were pointedly away from him, focused on whoever was reciting or on whatever he was fiddling with. Though, every once in a while, Neil would catch his skittish gaze flicker suspiciously away from him, from what could’ve been his crown to the stone roof. In catching him again, Neil would subconsciously pout and bring a hand to his crown, stabilizing where it sat on his head. 

“Don’t you have something to read, _O-He-Who-Performs?_ ” Pitts quipped, gesturing at Neil with some chocolate they were sharing. Neil blinked.

“What? No, I didn’t prepare anything.”

“Don’t be such a spoilsport.” Pitts threw _Five Centuries_ at his chest, which he caught with one hand. “Please just pick one; if we have to talk about Chris’ laugh for one more damn second I’m going to lose my mind.”

Laughing absently at the comment, he stuck his cigarette in his mouth so he could effectively flip to a familiar section in the book. Without taking much notice of its contents, he turned to a shorter poem and began to read, dropping the remains of his smoke to the ground and rubbing it into the soil with his foot.

 

_“A glimpse through an interstice caught,_   
_Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,_   
_Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,_   
_A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,_   
_There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.”_

 

Neil bristled, thumbing at the pages anxiously. “ _A Glimpse_ , by Walt Whitman.”

The boys oohed and aahed, and Neil cursed himself of choosing that poem of all the ones available. He could feel Todd’s stare on him, which unnerved him to no end. Pointing at the first other short poem on the page, he decided to read it as well in an effort to somehow erase the previous one. His eyes were skittering around the page so much that he found it difficult to keep them concentrated on one line.

“Oh, erm, here’s a short one,” he mumbled, fumbling with the book in his hands.

 

_“Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse unreturn’d love,_   
_But now I think there is no unreturn’d love, the pay is certain one way or another_   
_(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d,_   
_Yet out of that I have written these songs).”_

 

Neil blinked, and it felt like his stomach just dropped. “Another Walt Whitman, I guess. _Sometimes…_ Sometimes… Sometimes with One… _with One I Love._ ”

Someone, quite abruptly, got up from across Neil and turned around, leaving the cave with not so much as a word. If Neil had been standing, his knees probably would have given way.

“What’s got his panties in a twist?” Cameron muttered, blowing smoke from the side of his mouth.

“ _Neil_ ,” Charlie warned, holding his knee as if he would make a break for it. Neil just stared blankly at where Todd was only mere seconds ago.

“ _What_... like I could do anything that matters?” Neil grimaced.

“Just don’t do anything rash,” Meeks said, already reaching for another roll on his cloak spread between them. “He probably just went out for a breather or something.”

Neil scoffed, but he didn’t reply. Instead, he chucked _Five Centuries_ at Knox, indicating that he should be the one to read next. The loose rose fell out of his crown again, and Neil struggled to set it back into place. Charlie still eyed his friend warily, but said nothing else.

Todd didn’t return for the rest of the meeting. To be fair, Neil had picked his poems quite unfortunately, but he didn’t feel in the mood for speaking any longer. He did his best to not quite dampen the mood, somehow shying away from the banter the others gleefully participated in; he could tell the others were slightly bothered by his usual presence not quite being the same, but they tried not to let it get to them. 

The rest of the meeting felt… uneventful. Truly, it wasn’t quite as dull as Neil supposed it was, but regret and guilt really does put a damper on one’s mood. The meeting ended when more than one yawn was spotted and the last crumbs of food were all claimed. Meeks shook out his cloak as the others did their best to clean up, marching out of the cave and back into the forest. Pitts had brought a harmonica with him this time, and was doing his best to imitate a blues style. 

“Put your hood back on, Neil: we’re almost out of the forest,” Knox reminded him. Neil considered it for a moment, lightly touching at the flowers in his crown and the thorns on the stems. Meeks had kept his crown on for the entirety of the meeting, but in the thought of not wanting to be reprimanded for vandalizing the school, he left it with the God of the Cave.

Just as the trees were starting to thin out, Neil caught sight of something odd in the distance, and his hand that had moved towards his hood stilled. Slowing his pace considerably, he peered at the figure by the pier, his curiosity growing twofold.

“Actually, I wanna go check something out first,” Neil called out to them, forgetting about his hood altogether. “You guys can go on ahead of me.”

Though they refrained from calling out in question (as they didn’t want to bring any attention to themselves in the rare case that there was a wandering teacher in the dead of night), they watched Neil trot off down the hill towards the lake, too tired to pursue him. By the time Neil slowed his walk and checked over his shoulder, the rest of the Dead Poets had disappeared.

Even during the periods the students had free time during the hottest summer days, the pier was never too busy, yet there was still always something of a bustle around the water’s edge. Now that it was nighttime, the stillness of the glass-like lake induced an ethereal atmosphere, punctuated only by distant frogs and the occasional breeze rustling the tall reeds. A full moon glowed gaily through a clear sky, reflected on the water below. Rather than a witching hour, the magical sense of stopped time felt more like a faerie or a nymph hour. 

The wooden planks of the dock bellowed underneath Neil’s footsteps, yet the hooded figure by the water still didn’t move: he must have been aware of the boy approaching. Instead, the figure continued to blow softly at what looked like a paper in his hands, folding it delicately and precisely. By the time Neil arrived to the end of the platform, Todd had the folded paper neatly planted on his lap, inkpen scrawling an address on its front in messy cursive.

Neil didn’t say a word as he stood there — he knew his presence was enough. He stood so still that he could almost feel the waves lap at the posts of the dock beneath him, patiently washing away the old wood. The leaves and the rose petals in his crown also fluttered in the wind, as did his cape, which flowed and billowed out behind him. There he stood, in the crossroads of the pier, staring down at the cross-legged boy to the far left of the dock.

This time, Todd didn’t even bother to blow on his fresh writing, opting instead to place his inkpen neatly down beside him and hold out the paper between the two of them. Neil hesitated for a moment, studying Todd’s cautious gaze, before finally taking the liberty of a few steps forward to reach the letter. Falling back on his heels, he held a new letter preciously in his scraped and pricked hands, watching Todd’s outstretched arm fall back into his lap.

Right in the centre of the folded letter, words no taller than a dime, stood what was probably the most important set of letters known to Neil’s entire existence:

 

_To my dearest beloved_

 

Neil stared at the writing for a while, too stunned to think properly. He could feel soft eyes watching him carefully, discerning his every reaction. Neil brushed his thumb over the corner of _beloved_ , just to feel that it was real, smudging ink across the paper in the process. 

Smiling beautifully, he unfolded the letter like it was a wrapper of gold, reading the words for his and only his eyes alone to see under the pale moonlight.

Now, we are being true to our word in saying that the exact words of that letter were only for Neil’s eyes to see; however, it is not impossible to speculate over the letter’s very contents, as both Todd and Neil would later, under much influence and trust, reveal the general gist of the letter to close friends and family.

Todd talked of many things (or perhaps he didn’t say much at all). There were words of betrayal, words of distrust, words of uncertainty. There were also words of confirmation, words of passion, and words of love. Some sort of resolution was weaved into the span of these words, giving Neil an answer to a question he desperately sought to understand. There was no hesitance, but there was trepidation. There was no forgiveness, but there was caution. There was no reassurance, but there was tenderness.

When Neil had reached the end of the letter’s contents, having chewed each word slowly again and again, just to make sure of their very existence, he was greeted with the other most important set of letters known to his entire existence:

 

_Yours truly, forever_

 

Blissfully, Neil closed his eyes, relishing the moment with every ounce of his other senses. Very carefully, he lifted the letter, and bringing the paper to his lips, he kissed the words.

This kiss, a simple but reverent touch of the lips, expressed many thoughts to Todd at once. Though we cannot understand everything that went through their heads at this point, what we _can_ discern is that Neil stood there with the letter delicately held by his face until the moments melted into nothing. In this time, Todd watched the entire spectacle silently, his eyes softening and his own lips tugging up into a smile.

At long last, the letter was finally brought down, and Neil blinked his eyes slowly open again as if he were awaking from a deep slumber. Though he wanted to keep the letter as near to his fluttering heart as possible, his left cloak pocket would have to do. After making sure it was safely folded and stowed away, Neil stepped forward again, reaching out to Todd. Todd, having almost predicted Neil’s actions, met his hand halfway there, gladly accepting the offer to be helped to his feet. Instead of either of their hands falling out of each other’s grasp, Neil’s hand lingered where it was, his fingers woefully clasped on Todd’s.

“You don’t ever have to forgive me,” Neil finally murmured. He felt like his fingers were slipping away with sweat. “It was rash of me to do something so shortsighted.”

Todd hummed under his breath, swaying his arm slightly so that their fingers were in even more danger of slipping away. “I want to be able to forgive you, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to.” Neil bowed his head shamefully, and his crown slipped slightly down his forehead. “Everything that I thought was kept locked inside of me was read out to the entire class. Neil, we could have been _outed_.”

“You don’t have to forgive me.”

“ _Neil_.” His name was said so wistfully, so fondly, that his heart positively melted at the sound. “We have to be able to trust each other if we want a relationship.”

Biting his lip, Neil stared down at the ground, unable to look Todd in the eye. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” Todd said softly. “You’re an impulsive person, but I like that about you.”

Neil chuckled bitterly. “Yeah, but it almost fucked everything up completely.”

“ _Neil_.” The way his name rolled from Todd’s lips was enticing, and Todd seemed to love the sound of it himself. “Neil, Neil, Neil… I hate it for what you did to me, but I love it for what you’ve done to me.”

Not quite understanding, Neil kept himself completely still. This time, Todd was the one to move, not only moving his hand to secure his grasp around Neil’s fingers, but also reaching for Neil’s other hand, holding them loosely like a suspension bridge between them. Neil’s fingers twitched, curling around Todd’s hands slightly. 

“Do you understand how different I’d be if I’d never met you?” Todd continued, speaking softly. He rubbed his thumbs over the back of Neil’s hands. “I’d still be just the other Anderson boy, dutifully following in his brother’s footsteps. I wouldn’t have started writing. And I certainly wouldn’t have joined the Dead Poets Society.”

Something clicked in Neil’s head, and a mischievous grin spread across his face. Blinking lethargically, he finally looked up at the other boy. He stared at him for a while, happy to freely dissect every feature on his face without limits. 

Squeezing back at Todd’s fingers once, Neil let go, standing up straight and reaching up for his crown. His fingertips danced over the thorns, feeling for the one loose stem that had been bothering him all night. Finally locating the flower, he slowly pulled it away from where it had haphazardly been lodged, holding the still-perfect flower out in front of himself for Todd. Todd’s eyes flickered to the flower and then back to Neil, hesitating in question before reaching out to accept his gift at last. Carefully minding the thorns, he brought the petals to his nose and inhaled, never breaking eye contact with Neil once. When his breath was let out and the aroma of the rose filled his nose, he gave a rare smile and brought it down to his chest, holding the flower close to him.

“Would you mind if I did something impulsive?” Neil asked slyly, daring to take a step even closer. He barely caught how Todd’s breath caught in his chest, lifting his shoulders.

“I- I don’t know... I don’t think so.”

Grinning, Neil inched even closer, trapping Todd’s hand with the rose between their chests. He slid a devilish hand around Todd’s waist, daring to pull him even closer. “Mmm?”

Todd’s eyes flickered down. “Well it would be stupid to not want to.” 

Neil laughed briefly, breathy in the close proximity of the other. His other hand drifted upwards, snaking up to hold Todd’s face and gently brush a thumb over the corner of his mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

“Everything, I guess.”

“Stop apologizing, Neil.”

“Mm, okay, I promise.”

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You never responded to my letter.”

“Oh. That’s right.”

And with that, Neil tilted his head to the side, gently pressing his lips to Todd’s.

In its essence, the kiss was a response. Without knowing the exact content of Todd’s letter, we cannot know the exact meaning of Neil’s response, but both boys seemed to understand all the same. Perhaps there was something of an apology, something of uncertainty, something of caution. Todd’s other hand crept between them so he could clutch at the fabric on Neil’s chest. Perhaps there was also something of passion, of tenderness, and of love. It was Neil’s way of expressing the conclusion he had drawn.

The beauty of expressing through a kiss is that it was a two-way channel, and Todd responded easily as if he were breathing. Neil’s hand crept even further back, fingers grasping at the nape of Todd’s neck and shorter hairs there, pulling him into a deeper embrace. It was a sigh a relief, a sigh of finally, and the delivery of something both longed for dearly for what felt like forever. There was, of course, an underlying dread that this may be the last time they could touch each other like this, that they could express their feelings for one another like this, so there was a slight desperation to their contact as well.

There, under the all-knowing moonlight, began the first happy sleepless night Neil could remember. They stood like that, in each other’s arms and kissing like there was no tomorrow, for an eternity, content under the array of twinkling stars above them.

Perhaps the first moment Neil realized something was off was the instant the final word fell from Todd’s lips all those weeks ago, his eyes fluttering open anew. Perhaps it was always in the background, silently plaguing his mind like a lone fly in an empty room.

But perhaps it was a special moment, a moment under the stars and the moon and God themselves, a moment on crystal water and worn wooden planks, a moment in the embrace of who he’d later call a true love, that Neil began to hope.

And what a marvelous hope that was.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAAAA IM DONE??? (except for an epilogue lol bUT) WOW i did not expect it to be that long ahahaahahahaha.... throwback when i thought this was just going to end up being a oneshot press f
> 
> anyways now that i still have like 2 weeks until my japan exchange and the next part should be relatively short (given i dont accidentally spend all my energy writing for moomins or good omens), the next part should be up considerably sooner than this was lmao
> 
> happy america day — i already celebrated canada day a few days ago lol


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of a beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i finished this on the long plane ride to japan and i wasn't completely sane?? but that's alright cause i think it turned out okay. it _is_ considerably shorter of an update but i hope it'll give the proper closure for this story. i kind of feel like this might have had more of an emotional toll if you read at least the last chapter and then this back to back, but I hope it's fine all the same :^)
> 
> thank you guys so much for the support!! every time i got an ao3 comment notification in my email i stg it added a decade onto my life yall are so kind :,))) back when i was starting this as a oneshot in my head i had no idea it would be so well received, so i truly thank you all for your feedback (both on here and tumblr!!!)  
> also!!!! a big thanks to tumblr sanaharts for putting together [this graphic](https://sanaharts.tumblr.com/post/186056183992/my-moodboard-for-the-wonderful-fic-letters-to-my) for this fic!!! i was gushing about it for so long when i found it so bless you ily
> 
> here's to endings, both happy and sad

 

 

**Epilogue: Original Ending**

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_My dearest beloved,_

_Happiness is a commodity that is rarely felt in its whole nature, where we are satiated with feeling the condensation of the half-full glass. There is only one time I can recall that I have felt pure bliss, surely soaked in that glistening and warm sensation, when the midsummer danced and touched the long, cold winter._

_Up on a stage you reign, speaking words that aren’t mine with a borrowed voice, yet still you enrapture your crowd, rendering us nothing but sunflowers in the wake of our magnificent, brilliant life. You thrum with energy, translating a steady current of bated-breath tension through your flower field, and I can’t help but unfurl myself with a lion’s pride, enamoured with your talent and selfish in realizing what was mine. I couldn’t help but wish the evening had already come to a close, thrilled by the thought of taking your hand in mine, of placing lips on flushed skin, and of writing my own review of your performance directly on your heart in the unbroken tranquility of our own haven. Never again would you doubt your worth, but now, never again will I feel such happiness._

_Was I too bold? Was I too naïve? I felt something awake in me, roar at the sound of your voice, and louder I cheered, still in wordless awe that you have so indulged in a mastery of your own kind. Beside me, friends stood, just as proud and enamoured as I, and we awaited the moment we could indulge in our joy together._

_Have you ever realized how intricately beautiful winter storms are? When you first step outside, the thin layer of powder crunches wetly underneath your soles, and you leave your mark behind: the trace of an invisible presence still watches you from your past. Your breath escapes into the air like the steam from a train, and for once you can see that you are alive. Thick snowflakes tumble like white ash onto every surface around you, melting until it is frigid enough for them to pile atop their authentic corpses; ‘tis strange that we must regard them as independently original, for while they lay fallen in their resting place, they melt to the likeness of their neighbour, nothing but one tainted mass._

_And, for if you dare to admire too long, a frightful chill pierces your flesh, stinging red your cheeks and fingers and toes. Overwhelmed, you shake, wondering desperately if it is from the loss of warmth or the loss of summer. Suddenly, the environment turns against you, pulling the rug from your footing as you try and run away, away from what can only be a cruel illusion._

_I cannot look back now, for my shoulders must face forward as I tread on; it is an honest but unfortunate tragedy to trip over the burdens of your past in the pursuit of a brighter future. An irreparable wound splits my heart in two, and I yearn for consolation and revenge, but I know it is not my place — it never was. Instead, I must be thankful for what I was given, for surely even God knew my time was too good._

_It is with deepest regret that I confess this shall be my last letter to you, for my words shall now be written unspoken. Premature or unforgiven, all good things must come to rest._

_You are my sun and you are my stars,_  
_You are my moon and my clouds and my mars._  
_You are my everything now hath been laid to sleep:_  
_My beautiful, most beautiful, Annabel Lee._

_I’ll always be_

_Yours truly_

* * *

 

Do not stand at my grave and weep  
I am not there. I do not sleep.  
I am a thousand winds that blow.  
I am the diamond glints on snow.  
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.  
I am the gentle autumn rain.  
When you awaken in the morning’s hush  
I am the swift uplifting rush  
Of quiet birds in circled flight.  
I am the soft stars that shine at night.  
Do not stand at my grave and cry;  
I am not there. I did not die.

_Mary Elizabeth Frye_

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Epilogue: Alternative Ending**

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_ Forward _

_I’ve grown a lot throughout my life; as much as we, as prideful human beings, would like to take credit for being born prodigies in our crafts, a talent is groomed from the moment an interest is sparked, and consequently that skill is consistently honed throughout the entirety of our life — if we had the opportunity, we would eternally master those abilities as we find more to perfect or new projects to immerse ourselves. Though I still remain baffled at how widespread my work has become since college and how some even dare to call my work ‘classic’, I firmly believe there must be some acknowledgement to where one began, and that everyone most certainly has a starting point._  
_This collection is a comprehensive archive of what are probably my earliest recorded works. I only started to save my writing in my time at Welton Academy for the most personal of reasons, as you will soon read for yourself. I’ll admit that I am not entirely proud of everything that is being published here, but the act of sitting down and writing prose with a purpose was what radically enhanced my skill and inspired me to continue doing what I do now._  
_And, of course, inspiration has always been a critical factor to my writing._  
_My inspiration back then was not so dissimilar to what it is now: it all started with a boy. Now, this boy was an enigma. He was everything a quiet, introverted and still quite hormonal teenager wanted to be. He was everything a quiet, introverted and still quite hormonal teenager wanted to have, before either really understood what kind of feelings they could have for each other. He was the perfect muse._  
_Now, there were plenty of other sources of inspiration for very different types of pieces: hardship came aplenty, as well as the thoughts of ambition or fear. Muses came and went, each sparking new eras and experiments in their wake. Muses would also shift, evolving in their complexity as time passed and they drew closer to me._  
_Because this perfect muse, this perfect boy, became a man._  
_This perfect muse, what I believed to be the epitome of my motivation, continued to follow his dreams. Together we gritted our teeth and bared ourselves through every hardship, holding on tighter to life because our art brought value to everything we saw and heard and smelled and tasted and touched. I gripped his hand tightly and cheered loudly at his first Oscar because the event reaped the same nostalgic emotions that were present the moment the curtain fell for his role of Puck — his very own beginning._  
_This collection is a love story. These letters were the beginning of something very personal to me, but both my husband and I agree over the importance of sharing these records. We held onto each other when there was no one else to accept us, we held onto each other when we thought there was no other way out, and we want to give something to you, the reader, to hold onto as well if you so need._  
_Find your own muse. Do what you love. Perhaps, with three-quarters of a century under your belt, you will reminisce over your youth and ponder how it brought you to where you are today._  
_The minds of young boys are easy to mould, and with the proper inspiration, they will latch onto an idea for dear life and never let go unless something stronger pries it from their grip. It was the genius of the late John Keating that motivated an entire class to the brink of change in a broken system with only the power of two words._  
_Perhaps Neil and I are still those young boys, having held onto these words with exponential value as each decade passes us by._  
_Carpe diem._

_Todd Anderson_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my goodness thank you all so much for reading!! can you believe that i didnt have wifi on my laptop right when I got to my host family's house and was very ready to code and publish this on my phone??? me neither lmfao.
> 
>  
> 
> _edit: i don't know how many of you are here to read this again, but I forgot to include a part in the letter, which i've now finally added! if you didn't get it, the last line of that new paragraph is an allusion to an edgar allan poe poem :^)_
> 
>  
> 
> it's wack to finish something i guess, but if you're looking for more content, i will say i have maybe a handful of things planned, and you're certainly welcome to drop by and send prompts ~~though i will say i have no idea when i'll get around to finishing them, with all the projects I've going on~~! it's been more than a pleasure to write for dps

**Author's Note:**

> i mean its not done YET but PLEASE come talk to me about dps,,,, even feel free to come into my inbox (of my writing blog?) and send prompts (thatll i get around to at some point haha) (i have like 2 other smaller ideas after this floating around sooo) cause adsflkjdksf god i love all the poets sm (okay so maybe we can sacrifice cameron from this definition)
> 
> → [main tumblr blog](http://universalsatan.tumblr.com/)  
> → [writing blog](http://celestialberries.tumblr.com/)  
> → [Buy me a coffee! [Ko-fi]](https://ko-fi.com/universalsatan)  
> → also lol guess i just lov young ethan hawke cause i wrote a [gattaca fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16668253) too haha


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